The Great Race: Bavarian Alps, Germany
It’s been a refreshing few days over Easter…. I found myself today. It is true I did. I was sitting in a valley at the base of Bavarian Alps. The snow was fresh and untrodden. The mountains towered above, rising 2km on each side. As I sat silent, taking in the still surroundings a small avalanche began above. The snow flowed like a waterfall from ledge to ledge, collecting at the bottom of a 700m drop. We sat further down in the centre of the valley; having a picnic in the snow… laying out and letting the warm sun dry our soggy pants… a small price to pay for hiking in the snow. Another first for me.
The plans have been brewing for a while, Roger a friend and college has been chatting to me about what to do on his first trip overseas. While we have spent most of our time working hard on our honours projects, we were in need of a much-needed break. Many ideas had been thrown around, kayaking in Holland; Cycling to the North Sea… but Roger surprised me with a lift to the Bavarian Alps. The plan? To travel to the south of Germany, city/train hop our way to the base of Mt Walzmann (3rd largest mountain in Germany), and climb it! Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but we had a blast.
Day 1
We knocked of work early on the Thursday before Easter, and jumped in our ride share to Nuremburg. An excited new couch surfer member, I tried my luck the official way to find a couch. I asked about 12 people but everyone was busy, already had guests, or was going out of town. Lucky for us we happened to be arriving in town the night of the monthly couch surfer meet-up night! With nowhere to stay and the hostel booked out, it seemed like our best option to meet some friendly faces and score some accommodation. We struck up a good conversation with, Oliver, who let us know about the party… while he already had a guest he was so kind to let us stay the night in his lounge room! Thanks Oliver!!! We were so lucky his place was in the middle of the old town, which is still surrounded by a town walls, and is complete with a castle and cobbles stone paths.
Day 2
We got up early and took photos as the sun rose, and stopped for a lush breakfast, an alfresco breakfast beside the river running through the old town. We eventually made our way onto the train headed towards the Alps… being budget travellers, we are on the local trains… so we have a few stopovers on route… the best one was Munich! We had just over an hour… so we left the train station and found coffee to go… no having the first idea about what to do in town, I practiced my German on the beautiful blue eyed waitress… ‘We have only one hour here… can you recommend something interesting’… she pointed us in the right direction alright…. other than just being just generally amused by everyone’s relaxed chilled out take in the sun nature in the middle of town, we stumbled across the Munich Castle Thing (Roger help me out)… massive, old, unique it was everything a train hopping budget traveller can hope for. Loosing track of time we run several blocks with our heavily overloaded daypacks, making our train by only 1 min. Phew! We enjoys the tranquil calming effect of the lush green German country side, with quintessential German buildings scattered around, and lots of firewood… eventually we roll on up into the Alps… snow covered ranges of mountains, set against a foreground of lush green country side… the weather is good, t-shirt weather… I’m in my element. After almost a whole day of travel we arrive in Berchtesgaden, check into the hostel and get an early night.
Day 3.
The fun begins. We back out day bags, and make our way to the information centre. Several people have already warned us… pleaded even for us not to go up Mt Waltzmann… at 2700m its high… still being the end of winter/ beginning of spring the snow starts at about 1000m. Berchtesgaden is at about 600m. The gorgeous sparkly eyed information office staff send us off on the Carl von Linde Train, but with a twist… we are also walking via a very indirect route to the start… then continue on past… walking up a couple of hundred meters of snow to get to the base of the ski lifts… where we pursue Rogers burning desire to get up high high high in the sky. It was great, we walked through this quant little town, got lost a bazillion times, found an old salt mine (the region played a very important role in the salt trading days), walked along a ridge for a few km… then zig zagged along some mountain roads in search of the next path… we missed a couple of tracks because of the snow covering everything, making our trek even more indirect. But it was great. Went up the ski lifts to a lodge at the top, and enjoyed the lunch, which we swiped with our buffet breakfast at the hostel, while looking over an alien landscape of snow and rocks. Having walked about 20km, we pike on the downhill walk, cheating by taking the ski lifts down to the Konigssee (lake). Overwhelmed by tourists we head for the hills, winding our way to a bus stop that returns us to town… and then? And then we begin our quest for a bottle of red red wine. Walking perhaps another 4km and getting lost several more times! ha (I warned you Roger – wine should be organised before the walk). We stop on route to the Hostel to enjoy a couple of glasses. I think about the beautiful Angie as I watch cyclists’ couples wind through the mountains with wine in hand. The travelling bug reignited. How great it will be to explore Spain, Portugal and France together after my honours!!!
Day 4
We rose early, and headed off quick as can be after swiping a few meals from the breakfast buffet again. The plan for today was to head across the Konegssee, which takes about 40min to cross. We had been told about the largest waterfall in Germany, a small hike past the end of the lake. As it turned out the lake was still frozen, so we got the ferry as far as we could. A small outpost church and farm hidden in the valley only accessible by boat… or perhaps hiking. Having our plans thrown into disarray by the ice, but determined as all hell to get away from people into nature we headed for the hills… or Alps in this case. Since it was too snowy to climb Watzzmann, and we had walked just above the snow line the day before… we decided the next best thing was to walk as far as we could into the valley. With these massive Alps climbing up at about a 70deg angle to 2000/2700m. It was the kind of scenery where you don’t even bother taking photos because nothing but being there can do it justice. We followed the path as far as we could over streams, through pine forests, setting new footprints in the snow. It was like a scene out of the line the witch and the wardrobe. Truly breathtaking. We were so excited that sometimes we would just run for no apparent reason… it was really interesting walking through snow… its king of like sand, except you guessed it wetter! I think I half destroyed my shoes. Eventually we reached a sign that was clearly saying danger!! Being daft Australians, and seeing others had walked on previous days down this path we kept on walking into the belly of the beast. I’m pretty sure that the sign was warning about avalanches… but it seemed like most of the snow had already fallen. We reached the end of the tracks, there was a stream nearby as we could hear it under the snow… this made us a little nervous as we realised we were potentially walking over a frozen stream!! Time to stop being stupid, well relatively… I decided it was too beautiful to leave, and set out about having a picnic on the snow! Much to Rogers’s surprise, when he turned around and found me bathing in the sun, lying on a ground mat placed on snow. Had the best apple I have eaten in a long time, as the world faded into irrelevance sitting at the base of these larger than life Alps. Occasionally there would be a large ‘boom’, and we would see a mini-avalanche. It was a great day…. but our time quickly elapsed, and we cut it pretty fine getting back to the train station. Making the ferry by only a minuted, then the connecting bus by a minute (that turned out to be taking the long way) then made our train by 5min!! Phew. Exhausted after walking 40km in a couple of days (remember we just sit at computers most of the time!) we just slept on the train.
Day 5
Martius, Rogers work college was kind enough to allow us to stay at his parents home in Owswan(?). This was especially awesome, as it was a small country side town in Bavaria, with only 7500 people. The kind of towns you spend hours looking at on trains. These towns are dotted ever 7km all through Germany, but many foreigners only bother to visit the big cities, so it was a real cultural treat to be invited to stay. We got treated to a delicious assortment of cheeses, cake, coffee, and ham and salami, while bathing in the sun for breakfast. This was followed only a short time later by pepper stake for lunch! Perfect after a spot of walking. I also got to practice my hodge podge German with some understanding and patient locals! Then back to Hamburg for dinner.
All it all a pretty damn good time. While we didn’t get to climb Germany’s 3rd largest mountain, we did get to experience dozens of things we didn’t anticipate… like train hopping, couch surfing, small German towns, frozen lakes, and hiking in snow, a Bavarian beer or two…. ahhh… the list goes on! I tried to take lots of photos… I have to give Roger credit for a few, and for bolstering my motivation to take more photos! Power to you Ramjet.
Thanks for tuning in,
Love and respect to all,
Nathan
Posted on April 15th, 2009 :: Filed under Life, Travel
Tags :: Alps, Bavarian, Easter, germany, Travel
