I an leaving for Munich and Salzburg on June 24, Saturday for 2 weeks. Does anyone know the boyhood home of Pope Benedict. I know it is somewhere in Barvaria. Thanks

He was born in Markt am Inn, in the diocese of Passau, and he spent his childhood and adolescence in Traunstein, a small village near the Austrian border, thirty kilometres from Salzburg.

(from his biography on the Vatican Web site)

Thanks, Eloise, That was alot more great information than I thought I would receive. Maybe I will check it out while I am there. I want to.

He spent some time in Regensburg, sharing a house with his brother My American tour guide was married to a German woman whose mother had been a next-door-neighbor of the pope-to-be.

Sounds like that game "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" is about to be replaced by "six degrees of Benedict XVI." ;-)

I hate to correct Eloise, but Benedict was born in Marktl am Inn (note the added "l" at the end of the name). It is located close to Altoetting, a major place of pilgrimage in Bavaria, with a very impressive church. He spent some time in Tittmoning,which he called the "dreamland of his childhood and in Aschau am Inn. In 1933 his family moved to Traunstein, where he spent his teens. Traunstein is not a"small village ", but a county seat, population 17,600. It's on the main Salzburg-Munich train line, but not a major sightseeing place. The are around it (Chiemsee, Reit im Winkel, etc. is very scenic)

I'm quoting from the book "Der deutsche Pabst" (The German Pope) by Peter Seewald.

PS: Altoetting, Tittmoning and the nearby Burghausen are well worth places to visit.