Up early, breakfast (same comments about the quality at Hotel Koenigssee as yesterday)and then off eastward along B470 (the Deutsche Alpenstrasse - the German Alps Road). It's a spectacular drive, through varied alpine landscapes, with many opportunities to stop for views and pictures.
Our first stop was at Ruhpolding, a small village that I have stayed at many times before, and that my son Scott and I spent 3 days in last year. It is a very pretty alpine village, worth a visit in its own right, but we visited only the parish church (despite it being totally visible on a high hill above the town it is not easy to get to) because they have a Madonna from the 11th or 12th c. that is a masterwork of the times. Also, surrounding the church is the cemetery, which is a history in miniature of the life of the town, Many graves note that the deceased was killed mountain climbing; and most of the graves are inaccessible, except by mountain climbers carrying a casket.
We then backtracked a few kilometres to the Rauschbergbahn, the cable car to the top of the Rauschberg; a 900+ metre, almost vertical trip up a mountain with only one intermediate tower almost at the top. We went up in almost perfectly clear weather, and did a walk about at the summit, which has a spectacular view. A year ago when Scott and I were here, there were a dozen or so hang-glider flyers waiting their turn for take-off, this time there were none. We wondered why. Eventually, we came back to the summit restaurant for lunch, and found out why no one was flying. Within minutes a fog/cloud closed in that limited visibility to a few metres, and dropped the temperature to the mid-teens. We continued lunch (what else could we do) and within another 20 to 30 minutes, the visibility went back to near normal. In time, we took the cable car back down, just in time to get into our car and avoid a major downpour.
That was the theme for the rest of the day, as we drove along the German-Austrian border (with an occasional incursion into Austria - not a problem as long as we had the toll sticker!) towards Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Of particular note is the destination town of Reit-im-Winkl, which on a drive-through qualifies as exceptionally pretty, and worth more of a visit in the future.
Our stay in the Garmisch-Partenkirche area was booked at the Hotel Bergland, in Grainau, at the foot of the Alpspitze/Zugspitze mountain range. This turned out to be a very congenial, pretty, and well-run family hotel. We had a balcony room, with a great view of the mountains (when it wasn't fogged in - more later.) We settled in, and prepared to be flexible with our sight-seeing plans, waiting out the weather.
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