We get up, and grab breakfast from the bakers outside the station. We've heading to Dachau, and we want to catch the 11:30 showing of their film. We need to get the S-bahn to Dachau, and a bus to the Concentration Camp. The S-bahn is hidden in the bowels of the station. We find it, and deciphering the timetable tells us that the one we want is in about 20 minutes. The S-bahn is a bit like a metro, except that a train rolls in once every two or three minutes, and there are 9 different lines using the same platform. And it's free to Inter-railers.

We get on this train along with another zillion tourists. We all get out at Dachau and on herd onto buses, which bring us to the Concentration Camp.

As we walk in the gate, we are confronted with a large labelled map of the camp, which Cathy moves forwards to read. She comes back with somewhat teary eyes. We walk slowly round into the main camp, and into the entrance to the museum. Cathy objects to:

• The fact it took the authorities 26 years before they put up a monument.
• People who treat it as just another tourist attraction to "do" while you're in Europe.
• Having to pay for the guidebooks.

I keep quiet, as we head through the museum towards the cinema, where a brief film about the camp is shown. It's pretty full, and the film is full of scenes we're sadly accustomed to - families being torn from their houses, vanishingly thin human beings, mass graves. Afterwards, I notice an American dad asking his excited kid whether he's learnt anything. I reflect that this can be the only goal of this museum; education - the monument outside consists of the words "Never again", in a succession of different languages - it's certainly not an concept to commemorate.

The museum consists of documents and photographs chronicling the rise of the Nazi party and the history of the Dachau concentration camp. I hadn't realised just how soon the camp was set up after the Nazis came to power.

We get back from Dachau to find ourselves with a few hours before Mike's Bike Tour starts, at 4. We head to the Marianplatz, where the Town Halls are. The New Town Hall has a freaky clock which does its funky thing at 11, 12 and 5 each day - it's now about 2:30. We head to a restaurant recommended by our Book of Lart, the far side of the large market and beer garden in the middle of town.

If the menu's anything to go by, these people have a very unhealthy fixation with sausages. I wonder what Freud would have had to say about that. Their beer fixation is much healthier and I tackle a Dünkel (dark) beer. It's certainly gassier than a genuine English ale, but definitely palatable (and a wee bit strong). The sausages are veal, spicy and strange, and the restaurant can only be described as spartan - plain wooden benches and the waitresses are much the same. Cathy has a noodle and mushroom concoction and doesn't winge about vegetarian afterthought dishes.

[Wind-powered musical thing in the Marianplatz, involving cow bells and a cymbal. Brilliant.]

We arrive at the meeting point after a beer and a schnapps respectively, and worry about our ability to ride a bike. We find a bunch of people waiting there. Among them are a herd of Merkins playing hacky sac. They're pretty talented in a 12-year old / skateboard sort of way. There's also a wind-powered device which hits bells and cymbals occasionally. Very odd.

A representative of Mike and his Bike Tours arrives and introduces himself. He claims to be English, but he declines to show his passport and we don't believe him. He gives a speech about the various bits around the Marianplatz. It's a bit superficial and content-free, and

[Group photo from Mike's Bike Tour of Munich. ]

very into audience participation. The Merkins love it, but the Brits (that's us) aren't so convinced.

We decide to stick with it and head off down the road to collect bikes. They have the riding position of a Harley and the credibility of a Trabant. And no, kids, they're not choppers. Our guide is a Scot with yellow spiky hair. He has comedy names for every nationality except Merkins (he knows who's easiest to part from their money) - Canadians become "Mooseshaggers", the English are "scum", humorously. I claim my Scottish roots.

[Cathy is surprised by someone with a camera. ]

As the tour continues, it becomes increasingly obvious that it was designed with the emphasis on an American audience. There is lots of audience participation (when the guide mentions King Ludwig the First, the tour has to shout "Stud!") and any actual information is carefully glossed over in a manner vaguely reminiscent of the way the BBC abhors science. But that's a different rant...

We go through a few choice bits of Munich, learning a few sound-bites about each. I am pulled up for not shouting "they light it up at night". I'm tempted to show my passport to prove I don't have to.

[Refuelling stop on the bike tour.]

We discover that our tour includes a stop in a beer garden. The guide spends five minutes explaining to the Merkins that dark beer is nice and not equal to Guiness. The English present, of course, already know this and I order a litre of "Old Munich Dark". It's still closer to lager than its English counterparts, but pleasant. And strong.

An hour later, we're wondering if the tour is going to leave, or whether we've paid 30 Marks to sit and drink beer. We do eventually leave, and do the rest of the tour after the guide warns us that we're now all drunk and about to ride into a tree. We do the rest of the sights, and end up in a basement in order to pay. The Americans all purchase their Mike's Bike Tours frisbees and baseball caps and head for the Hofbrauhaus (a beer cellar exclusively for tourists). We go to a restaurant and have a sausage-free meal. And then to bed.