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German Wandern: Family Hiking in Bavaria
It seems that almost everyone who comes to Germany wants to see Bavaria, the southeastern part of Germany encompassing Munich. The famous capitol city is surrounded by the Bavarian Alps, making it popular with tourists. We have been there several times ourselves. It's the grandeur of the mountains that brings us back, but I digress!
A Munich Overnight
On this trip, we drove from our home in Heidelberg to Munich, where my son Peter wanted to see where the famed Oktoberfest takes place. We walked around the old part of the city that first night, having dinner at the famous Hofbrauhaus. We ate in the garden and had a very nice German meal with the full liter of beer.
We arrived on a Friday night and had not made our room reservations until the day we left, a big mistake as Munich's cheaper bed and breakfasts were already full. We paid about US$150 for one room night at the dog-friendly Hotel Amba (49 8954 5140); a karplatz for our car and a full German breakfast were included in the price. The next morning, we awoke ready to go sightseeing and made our way to the center of the Hauptstrasse main street where bustling boutiques lined the street. Next we visited the market place called Marienplatz where a glockenspiel entertained crowds in the ancient Rathaus tower. I played a glockenspiel in high school and expected to hear music, but was instead entertained by miniature figures performing a jousting match. We took note that the tower was being renovated and wondered if the glockenspiel would play music at its completion and hopefully in time for our next visit to September's Oktoberfest.
We climbed up the tower in the church of Peterskirche to get a marvelous, but crowded, view of all of Munich. Then we walked the street and saw another cathedral and stopped for lunch at the Hofgarten. This was a very nice, cool and relaxing place to stop. It's an open park with trees and beautiful flowers. There are food stands to purchase drinks and wursts and sit at tables under the trees.
We walked north to the Englischer Garten. What a beautiful park! There was a river people actually surfed on that the city designed with an artificially churning wave. The water continued to flow rapidly through the park, very shallow at about 4 feet, greenish-white in color and very cold. But in 90°F (32°C) degree weather, refreshing! We watched children jump in, float down and then make their way to the side to jump out, run up stream and start over again. After cooling off in the river ourselves and enjoying the beautiful flowers and trees, we made our way to the captivating Chinesischer Turm tower where an oom-pah band entertained and vendors were selling what else? More beer, pretzels, ice cream and wursts. This stop was really overpriced compared to the Hoftgarten.
Alpine Hike to the Eagle's Nest
After lunch and relaxing in the park, we made our way by car from Munich for the mountainous Berchtesgaden, about an hour-and-45-minute drive. We stayed at the very nice, old Wittelsbach where the staff greeted us warmly and made us feel right at home. Once again there was no A/C, but the nights were cool and comfortable, we had a full German breakfast and off-street parking. We used this as our base for hiking and began the best part of our trip -- hiking in the German mountains.
We started at Kehlstein Mountain where Hitler's famous Eagle's Nest sits. We drove up to the Hintereck parking lot, followed the signs, and hiked the rest of the way on a quiet service road. The two-hour walk was steep but not too difficult and, at the elevator leading to the Nest, multi-lingual tour guides were available for hire. The brass-plated elevator itself was grandiose; supposedly Hitler was claustrophobic so they made it large. But before going up the elevator, our guide pointed out places in Obersalzberg where the Berghof used to be, SS barracks, workers barracks, Bormann’s farm, and Salzburg, Austria; all of which could be seen from our perch on this mountain. Inside the Nest, she was also happy to point out that not much was left as the American soldiers took whatever they could when they reached this point in 1945. You learn alot about WWII by living in Germany, not the facts in books but the sentiment of Germans. It's very interesting!
From the Eagle's Nest there are even more beautiful views, so we took Christmas card photo ops and ate our packed lunch. We bypassed the elevator ride down and walked all the way back to our car. After showering at our hotel, we drove to a little village called Maria Gern about 10 minutes away for dinner and listened to more Bavarian music. What looked like a long, straight road was actually winding up and not so easy to find, but always beautiful.
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