Bavarian Alps and Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Monday Duane and I picked up our car at the Munich Hauptbahnhof to head south to the Bavarian Alps. Road trip!!!


For lunch, we stopped in Ettal to visit Ettal Monastery, a Benedictine Abbey, where monks still run a brewery, distillery and Schaukäserei (cheese factory). The small little town was nestled in a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains that sharply jetted into the sky. After exploring the monastery, we browsed the adorable little shops around main street.

The Abby

Kid. In. A. Candy. Shop.
I was so tempted. So very tempted.
After, we had a short jaunt to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a small little mountain town in the Alps that rests in the shadow of Germany's highest mountain, Zugspitze. Fun fact, Garmisch and Partenkirchen remained separate until their respective mayors were forced by Hitler to combine the two towns in 1935 in anticipation of the 1936 Winter Olympic games. After settling into our B&B, we explored the cute stores, chocolatier, and had some delicious food.



After breakfast on Tuesday, D and I set out for our activity, a leisurely hike around Lake Eibsee. Located just outside of town, the walk gave use a small glimpse of the Alps in all of their glory. The ~5 mile hike let us soak in the panorama views, waterfalls galore, the crystal-clear deep blue turquoise water in the lake, and of course, the Zugspitze.


A perfect spot for lunch
Waterfalls! Remember these Californians??? 



Wednesday, we packed up to move on to our next destination/adventure, Füssen. Since we are basically a stone's throw away from Austria, we decided to take a shortcut through the Austrian Alps. D found a 700 old fortress named Ehrenberg Castle and Fort Claudia on our way, so naturally, we thought this would be an epic place to explore and have lunch.

The view from below...
This is what hiking at 22.5 weeks pregnant looks like. Lots of stopping. 

Ehrenberg Castle
Highline179. The world's longest suspension bridge at
1,300ft long and 376ft high, aka Meaghan and Carrie's worst nightmare.
I don't have a fear of heights and this was even a little crazy for me.
Ehrenberg Castle from the other side
The view from the Schlosskopft
Schlosskopft

Things we learned:
  • The Alps are freaking amazing!
  • Germans don't post speed limit signs very often. 
  • Germans speed, a lot.
  • Beer is ridiculously cheap!
  • We always seem to struggle figuring out how to fill up a car. 
Location: Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grand Palace, Wat Arun and Wat Pho

Image
The last two days have been extremely full with adventure, eating and exploring. Yesterday we (and what seemed like half of China) started off the very warm day at the Grand Palace. The palace was the official residence of the Kings of Thailand and is made up of numerous buildings, halls, pavilions set around open lawns and gardens. the most holy Emerald (made of jade) Buddha Next, we headed off to Wat Pho, which was just down the road (after grabbing a much needed fresh fruit juice, the stuff is everywhere and is amazing). This temple is famous for the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. Within each temple there are different shrines to Buddha for different things, business, love, mother nature, success, health, ect. For the Chinese New Year, high level monks were giving blessings to people, so to take advantage of the rare opportunity, Duane and I stood in line to receive a blessing which was pretty cool. the famous Reclining Buddha In t
Read more

My Second Homeland

Image
Germany. Last summer, my cou sin Florian emailed me that he and his long time girlfriend, Martina, were engaged. So amazing! Another excuse to go to Europe! I love those. Through planning and limited by PTO, I decided we would rent a car and explore the Bavarian Alps South of Munich and make our way to the Black Forest for our first traditional German wedding. Yesterday, Mom, John, Duane and I la nded in the second best city in the world, Munich (Fact: San Francisco is number one). Hello old frie nd. It has been far too long. Struggling, but desperately trying to stay awake, we made our way to our respective hotels just in time for a much needed shower. To accomplish not passing out at 7pm and inevitably making my jet lag unbearable for the next 5 days, we met up with my good friend Fabian for dinner and drinks in the student neighborhood around the University. Man, did I miss my German food and my friend.  Sunday was our only day in the city befor e Duane and I head south into th
Read more

Willkommen Zurück Nach Zürich

Image
Well hello again Zürich. Nice to see you old friend! Only for 2 weeks and this time, but we do have a toddler in tow! Oh how things have changed: Example #1. An 11 hour flight is no longer my time to catch up on movies that I haven't seen in the past year, it is now, do anything and everything possible to keep the child quiet, preferably sleeping, so there isn't a viral video of us on the internet. He did pretty good on the flight. The first 2-3 hours were a little rough as it was 3 hours past his bedtime, he had benadryl, he was confined to a very very small area, wasn't allowed to walk around, and so much was going on around him. The kid was WIRED, BUT once I got him to sleep, he slept for 6 hours across us and was pretty good when he woke up. I will say that the highlight of the flight was when Grayson stood up on my lap and started loudly chanting "pee and poo" for all of our neighbors to hear. Duane and I laughed so hard we cried. (I might be really
Read more