Big Day Out

Today was bigger than we planned for. For those of you who know the area the route will tell the story. For those who don’t to say that we criss-crossed the German -Austrian border several times would about summarise things:

From Oberstaufen

To Immenstadt

To Sonthofen

To Bad Hinderlanger – here we followed a dozen or so cyclists up the long, narrow and winding hill. It was hard work concentrating to ensure one didn’t cross the centre line while at the same time taking care to not hit the wall on the right hand side! Buses also use this route so extra care had to be taken when meeting them. However it was a great lookout over the valley once we got to the top.

To Oberjoch - crossed the Austrian border shortly after this.

We stopped at an Austrian flea market just before Haldensee. It was held on the premises of a super market that was closed - that’s what they do with supermarkets on a Sunday in this part of the world! The things that were being sold were most interesting – a wide range of cow bells – the really do use them on cows, we have the pictures to prove it! Other items included a range of traditional handcrafts, embroidery, wooden objects, traditional clothing, lots of china etc. If we weren’t travelling light we wouldn’t have had trouble filling our cases with mementos from here.

To Weissenbach

To Reutte

To Lermoos

Crossed back into Germany

Arrived at Garmisch-Partenkirchen a couple of hours later than intended – took a ride in the Kreuzecbahn (18 euro return) to its top (1651m). Weather conditions did not warrant riding the big one Eibsee-Seilbahn to the Zugspitze 2962m (45 euros return).

Since we were so close we took a detour to Oberammagau, venue for the Passion Plays. One characteristic of this place is the paintings on many of the buildings; most depicting scenes from the plays. The shops were full of items including carved wooden toys, handcrafts, religious icons etc. We couldn’t resist buying an ice-cream here either!

Through the Ammergau Alps and back in Austria around Plansee

To Reutte

To Weissenbach

Back into Germany before Hindelang – took photos of the welcome sign

To Sonthofen

To Immenstadt

And back to Oberstaufen

Everywhere we went the scenery was breathtaking. There was a mixture of charming villages, tall timber, towering alps, pretty streams, people walking on tracks in the hills and cows and their bells providing the music! The only thing that could have improved things was another 3-5 degrees and an absence of showers.