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.

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