22.8.13

.. and then the perfect Bavarian alpine tour

Following breakfast came my favorite part of any southern Germany tour, those kilometers when you're heading straight for the mountains. That day, the Alps appeared shadowy on the horizon in the haze of the summer heat but the alpengiggle of years ago still rose in my throat. Our first stop was the monastery at Benediktbeuern, a place we'd first visited together on a gloomy, rainy summer day in 2008. That time we'd eaten in their bunting-bedecked beerhall, but this time we wandered through the herb and rose gardens in the scorching morning heat before retreating to the car in search of cooler landscapes.

From Benediktbeuern south, the landscape quickly becomes fully Alpine, so we were soon about 8 degrees (celsius) cooler and zipping along on switchback roads that offered tantalizing peeks of emerald green lakes. We stopped at one that I remembered had also featured in our cloud-shrouded 2008 tour, this time a brilliant, indescribable turquoise teal-green. S left me with my toes in the water and went back to the village we'd just passed for some local surprises, returning with pfefferbeisser and some bottles of ice-cold radler. We chewed and sipped, calf-deep in water, books in hand, occasionally admiring the water and watching the lakeside life going on around us. Far overhead, a mountainside construction site received helicopter deliveries of planks, and a dignified-looking gentleman arrived at our rocky outcropping, stripped to his bathing suit and took a short swim. As he dried off, he commented on the lovely location and day, saying that the swim had been his choice of lunchbreak from work. He wished us a good vacation and continued on his way.

We then continued on our way, passing through the famed Garmish-Partenkirchen before taking a slight dip into Austria. We stopped at a spot with a view on the Zugspitze so S could have the required germknödel. This insanely huge dessert is a must-have for him whenever we visit Alpen areas, but for me it's inextricably linked with one wintry day on the Dolomite ski slopes with KSK. After skiing all morning, we stopped at a mountain hut for lunch, and were lured by photos of what seemed like an adorably small dessert. When the bloated, plum-filled dumpling arrived, swimming in vanilla sauce arrived, we tackled it gamely but the rest of the day we found ourselves skiing a bit drunkenly, an effect we blamed entirely on the germknödel. Since then I've stuck with a spoonful or two.

Post dumpling stop, we wended our way back out of Austria and back into Germany, landing right at the intersection that goes to one of Germany's most beloved tourist stops, Neuschwanstein. I simply had to see it, so we braved the bizarre traffic survey (four cars at a time were let through, while be-vested teenagers asked us what the nature of our trip was and what our destination was) to the chaos at the base of the castle. From there, it was a brisk 20 minute walk up the winding entry road for us. We passed a lot of people from all over the world, including the ones in the horse-drawn carriages. Once inside the castle courtyard, I was glad we hadn't sprung for the tickets, as enormous groups were corralled together and let in at 15 minute intervals.

S found himself a shady, slightly less crowded spot to doze in while I headed further to a lookout point on a bridge. The landscape was charming, the crowds less so, but I managed the requisite look-I-am-here-for-real photo before we scrambled back to the car. We hadn't planned our overnight but after the tourbus traffic jam in Füssen, we decided to keep going and try our luck. S has a good nose for overnight places, so I didn't argue when he proposed turning off towards the massive lake that stretches northwards from the base of the Alps there. We found ourselves in a tiny village with a handful of houses and a guesthouse at a dead-end road. He left me in the car while he went in to scent out the lay of the land, and returned triumphantly, door key in hand.

Our room was on the second floor, complete with a deep balcony overlooking the crystal-clear lake and the mountains to the south. As soon as we'd unpacked, I threw on my swimsuit and walked down to the tiny beach area lakeside.  I backfloated there in the chilly aquamarine water and marveled at how much better Neuschswanstein looked framed by my bare feet with the muffled sounds of children splashing on the shoreline instead of the cacophony of a million hot tourists. Perfection.

The next day dawned hot, so after an early breakfast followed by a dip in the lake, we dawdled our way back north via&nbsp Bundesstraße, with one final stop at a marvelous lakeside cloister outside Munich. A short tour of a jewel-box baroque chapel followed by the local apple-cider/wheat beer mix (don't knock it til you've tried it, people), and we were ready for the next phase of our vacation back in Nürnberg. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Germany is still one of my favorite places for a road-trip vacation, due in no small part to my excellent tour guide.

13.8.13

perfect Bavarian city tour

S and I spent our summer holiday in his homeland and in between various family commitments, we took a short trip south to my favorite area. We'd previously been through southern Bavaria on our way elsewhere, but never spent enough time for me to get a proper feeling for Munich. One winter day and a November afternoon in a beer garden do not a city tour make.

I found an serendipitiously inexpensive and well situated hotel via app two days before, so by mid-afternoon we were settled in, car disposed of in the garage, and ready for exploration. S had arranged to meet a friend at the Pagoda so we started off with a wander around the famed English Gardens. The bosky paths intertwining with the swift moving river were exactly as I'd hoped it'd be, and with a panini and drinks we found a shady spot to enjoy the atmosphere and an overview of what seemed to be the prime sunning area for locals. As I looked over the prone bodies I noticed there seemed to be a surprising absence of clothes, which was confirmed when a nattily dressed guy arrived by bicycle and proceeded to remove every last stitch of his business casual outfit before flopping on a towel. Not quite the scenery I had imagined from one of the most famous parks of Germany! We continued the wander past another section of river where bathing-suited people floated under the bridge and then ran dripping back upstream to repeat the process, dodging lederhosen-clad bicycle rickshaw drivers carrying agog tourists through the chaos. A bit further on, we arrived at the pagoda and its immense forest of green-painted tables in the beer garden.

S's friend and her boyfriend were waiting so we ordered our immense one-liter drinks (we chose the half-and-half radler option instead of full beer) and a gigantic pretzel with obatzda and settled in for the evening, watching as the tables filled up and people brought out their beer garden accessories. Unlike anywhere else I've been in Germany, it's apparently quite acceptable to bring your own tablecloth, decorations, and dinner to a beer garden, and then just buy a few mugs of beer to round out the meal. After the place became too crowded for our liking, we moved along, over the Isar to their favorite local café for dinner, and then S and I went back to our cozy hotel by tram.

The next day we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the hidden garden of the hotel, marveling at our good fortune in finding the place before we packed up and returned to the center of town for an intense few hours at the German Museum. It's a full experience, that museum, from the impressive kaiserzeit architecture to the vast collection that covers everything from a 1906 u-boat to a fully operational miniature brick factory. We went our separate ways so he could look at spaceships while I checked out textile history and musical instruments. Three hours later, we'd both had enough so we went back to where the car was parked near the viktualienmarkt. The day was sunny, leafy and breezy so we ate lunch there- freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and goat cheese, sundried tomato, and rucola panini.

We'd found a hotel for the evening outside of town, so we decided to make one more stop on our way out, at the Nymphenburg palace. As we pulled up, I was reminded strongly of my visit to Versailles when I was in college, with its similar flanking outbuildings, and the grand canal setting off the gardens behind in a similar fashion. S was feeling a bit walked-out so I left him in the palm café and set off on a promising looking path. In classic grand schlosspark fashion, there were plenty of follies and a romantically winding stream criss-crossed by urn-topped bridges. There were plenty of swans gliding gracefully as well, naturally.

When I'd had enough traipsing, we continued on our way to our overnight, a classically Bavarian guesthouse on the edge of a forest, naturally with its own enormous beer garden. We supped there on creamy garlic soup, goulash and a tomato stuffed with goat cheese, herbs, and rice. A delicious end to a delightful pair of days.