Munich
This trip started out as a two week cycling trip through Bavaria but had to be changed to hiking after I had surgery mid year. We kept to the original area but instead of the circular route we had planned we chose four villages and spent 4 or 5 days in each. First stop was Munich after a 12 hour flight from Singapore. We spent two days there to adjust to the time zone and visited the 1972 Olympic site which now includes BMW World, this is free and worth a visit if you are in the area. Nymphenburg Palace is also worth a visit and is a 30 minute tram ride [number 17] from the centre of the city. An all day travel pass for 2 cost Euro12.80, we were able to use trains, buses and trams in the city and metro area with that.
BMW World and the factory in the background.
Nymphenburg Palace
Ruhpolding.
The first village was 2 hours south of Munich, we used trains to move between villages, these were fast, on time and relatively cheap.
Each village has special deals for visitors who are staying in the hotels or guest houses in the area. Ruhpolding offered free local bus travel, free chair lifts, free Internet and discounted entry to many local attractions. We used the chair lift ticket to get to the top of Rauschberg [a saving of Euro 36 with our free pass] and then hiked down, sounds easy but 3 hours of descending is actually more painful than climbing.
Ruhpolding from the summit.
Rauschberg hike.
We did three hikes in this area, Brand at 12.2kms, Rauschberg at 17.7kms. and Seehaus-Wiedsee- Biathlon Centre at 17.5kms.
Bad Tolz.
The next stop was the small town of Bad Tolz, about two hours by train west of Rupholding. I was not expecting too much from this place, on the Internet it looked as though it lacked any real challenges, no mountains nearby. I was wrong, this is a great place to spend a few days. Hiking, biking, kayaking or rafting are all well established. It is a health spa resort as well so has a high population of elderly residents and visitors.
The main street of Bad Tolz has a huge selection of restaurants and one of the best ice cream shops I have ever seen.
The first hike took us up to Wackersberg and then back beside the Isar River, total distance was 12.94km. Beautiful Bavarian farm lands and incredibly neat villages. If you don't like this type of scenery or photos best stop now, there are more to come, this area is picture perfect wherever you look, to travel through it at walking pace is a great way to spend a few weeks of your life. What makes the travelling even more enjoyable is the quality of the local food. Fresh vegetables that make Australian supermarket offerings look very sad, the best beer in the world at Euro1.67 for 6 bottles, good drinkable wine from all over the world for 3 to 4 Euros per bottle and did I mention the cakes and pastries. Walking every day takes care of the calories.
Wackersberg Village
On the way back beside the river we came to the strange place shown in the following photo, thousands of river stones stacked in various shapes. It looked and felt quite spooky, what goes on there I can only imagine.
This is only a small section of the cairns, someone has spent a lot of time creating this weird place.
The following day we headed north beside the Isar before crossing it and then travelling east to the small village of Ellbach. At 18.2kms. this was one of the longest days for us but it was an easy walk, so much to see that the time passed quickly. We took our lunch with us and sat in the forest with black bread, cheese, some fantastic pepper garlic sausage, a salad and cold water from our Camelbaks.
Germans are sport mad, if the sun is shining everyone seems to be walking, biking, skating or rafting. The local government makes it easy to do all of these things with great trails, paths and in the case of rafting even a metal slide to move your raft and case of beer past any obstructions, in this place it was a small dam that stopped the progress of the rafts and kayaks.
Garmisch Partenkirchen.
To get to the next town we had to travel back to Munich and then take the BOB train to G.P., it sounds difficult but in reality was very easy. Euro 29.00 bought a ticket for two, three hours train travel and we were there.
Garmisch Paternkirchen reminded me a lot of Aspen Colorado, a very beautiful location but with a town that has grown tired and ugly because it has become too large. Too many people, cars, businesses and traffic lights. The only solution to this is to get out of town every morning and up into the surrounding mountains. That is exactly what we did. I had downloaded maps of various hiking trails from the GP website which is excellent. We decided that the first one would be the walk up to Wamberg. A tiny village which has the distinction of having the church at the highest altitude in Germany. The trail itself is 14 kms. in length but we added another 6 kms. by starting it from our hotel, the total for the day was 20.35 kms. with some serious elevation included. The following GPS image shows the route.
Garmisch Patrenkircken to the left, Wamberg village at the right.
After leaving G.P we passed by the site of the 1936 Winter Olympics, we stopped to check our map, a local man out for his morning walk stopped to offer help, we told him we wanted to go to Wamberg, he suggested the chair lift but we told him we wanted to walk. He explained the way to get to the trail and warned us the way up was very fast. He was correct, if your legs and lungs are strong enough you gain altitude very fast. A bit further on at another map stop a young woman stopped to help us, Wamberg? Oh, Ja it is very beautiful but the way is very strong, she indicated with her hands that it was vertical !!!. ''but it's OK Ja.''. Both were correct, it was fast and strong but so beautiful that the pain was forgotten every time we stopped to take in the view, which was quite often.
The trail was incredibly beautiful, it was very very hard work for the first 4 kms. of the climb but constant rest breaks and the views made it worth all of the effort. We stopped for lunch on the way down, sitting on a log we were passed by many groups walking up from the other side, this ascent is not as steep but it is much longer, 10 kms. when you do it anti clockwise. What was impressive is that many of the hikers were 70 to 80 years old and they were striding out. Something you just do not see in Australia is elderly people hiking, biking or doing any form of vigorous exercise. It must be something to do with the quality of the beer in Germany.
I mentioned that a camera can never capture height or the steepness of a road or mountain, the following photo shows that very well. With about 4 kms. of the trail left to do we came to a section that was so steep that it was difficult to keep your footing, it was a sealed road, it was about 1.5 kms. in length. Just after we started down this section we passed a young woman, probably early twenties riding up it on a mountain bike. She had already completed 80% of that section, she was sitting on the seat !!!, not standing on the pedals and did not even appear to be sweating. She almost lost momentum just after passing us but regained control, grunted and kept pedaling. The grade at this point recorded by my GPS was 34.9%. I haven't seen Tour de France riders ride such steep sections.
Following is the GPS profile of that section and then another for the entire trail, you can see at the 15.7 km. point where we saw this rider the grade was 34.9%
Starnberg.
Only a few days before we had to return to Australia so we had a two day R&R in Starnberg, just 27kms. south of Munich, this is a very classy place, looking at the houses and shops it must be where all of the lawyers and doctors have their weekend homes. It was also a favourite of the mad King Ludwig of Bavaria who mysteriously drowned in Stanberger See together with his doctor, thereby solving the populations problem of what to do with the royal family and the vast amounts of wealth they controlled at the time. [It all went to the doctors and lawyers]
Only one short walk of 10 kms. here to Schloss Berg, it was a real contrast but a nice and a very relaxing way to end a what was a great trip. Walking lets you discover places and people that you miss if you are travelling by car or bus, its cheap and at the end of it you are in much better shape than you were at the start. Recommended.
Photos were taken with a Nikon S 9100.
Total hiking distance was 155kms.
Cost of all trail access and the cable car we used was Nil.
Bus services in all villages were free.
Two weeks of train and tram travel Euro 143.00
Beer cost E 1.67 for 6 x 500ml bottles, now that is impressive.
