10/21 – 10/25 Garmisch, Germany

We spent 5 days in Garmisch, Germany.  This is the view from the living room in the apartment we are renting.

  

 And this is the apartment we are staying.  We are on the far side with the balcony.

To get from St. Goar to Garmisch we had to take 4 different trains.  This time it was not as scary.  I can navigate my way on German trains and we were getting into Garmisch before sundown.  Having the sun out makes me feel more comfortable.  We arrived in Garmisch around 5 pm.  It was about a 15 minute walk from the train station or we could have gotten a taxi for about 10 euros.  Of course we walked.  It was an easy walk.  The owner met us at the apartment and showed us around.  This place has 2 bedrooms, living room, kitchen and bath.  No washer or dryer so I will have to wait until we get to Munich to clean our clothes.  I love having the balcony.  I sat out there many mornings having a cup of coffee.  This place had a coffee maker.  A few of them did not.

At the grocery store there was a small area that had American food.  I was able to get mac & cheese, not Kraft but Katie liked it.  And they had Campbell’s tomato soup.  Holly was excited about having this.  We haven’t been able to find ranch dressing since England.  And there I only found it in the Sainsbury’s and it was Paul Newman’s.  But they do have Heinz ketchup.

The town of Garmisch is a combined town with Partenkirchen.  Here is a history of the town found on Wikipedia.

Garmisch and Partenkirchen remained separate until their respective mayors were forced by Adolf Hitler to combine the two market towns in 1935 in anticipation of the 1936 Winter Olympic games. Today, the united town is casually (but incorrectly) referred to as Garmisch, much to the dismay of Partenkirchen’s residents. Most visitors will notice the slightly more modern feel of Garmisch while the fresco-filled, cobblestoned streets of Partenkirchen offer a glimpse into times past. Early mornings and late afternoons in pleasant weather often find local traffic stopped while the dairy cows are herded to and from the nearby mountain meadows.

I enjoyed walking around in the town and window shopping.  We did buy some chocolate at a store.  It was good.  Quite a few of the buildings have pictures painted on them.  I thought I had taken more pictures but I only have 1.  Here it is.

Thursday was a beautiful day.  It was in the 60s and it was going to be a clear day.  We decided to take a trip to the Alpspix.  There are two options of mountains to explore.  Mount Zugspitze which is close to 10,000 feet.  Or the Alpspix.  We chose the second option.  It is part of the Garmisch Classic ascent.  We took the local bus to the Alpspitzbahn cable car.  This was the way we were to get up to the Osterfelderkopf, the first station of the round trip.  It is 6,725 feet up the mountain.  Standing at the bottom waiting to buy our tickets it didn’t look too bad.  Yeah it was above the pine trees.  But it didn’t seem much higher than a ski lift.  We could do this.  The London Eye looked like it was higher.

The cable car is enclosed and there were about 20 people on it.  There were a few seats around the edge but most of the people had to stand.  Everything was going fine until we got to the top of the mountain.  This was not the tall mountain.  It was the shorter one in front.  The cable car did not follow it down but continued up to the higher mountain.  So we were above the valley between the two.  Yeah we were really high off the ground.  Much higher than the London Eye.  Sorry but I did not get any pictures.  I didn’t look out the window very much.

We made it safely to the Osterfelderkopf station.  At this station is the Alpspix viewing platform.  It is in the shape of an “X” and protrudes out over the gorge.  This was worse than the cable car ride.  Of course fearless Holly went right out.  Katie was a little hesitant but she went out with Holly.  I went part of the way out then went back.  Then holding on to the rail I went out saying “Facing Fear, Trusting God.”  Yeah for VBS!  I touched the glass on the end then went right back to having solid earth under my feet.  I was not afraid of heights as a kid.  I’m not sure what has happened but me and high places do not do well together anymore.

 This shows the cable going up the mountain.  See it doesn’t look too bad.

 Then here is the view from the top!

 Holly & Katie out on the Alpspix.  Someone had to stay back and take their picture.

   A couple of pictures of the view down from the platform.

After I trusted God and faced my fear we took the Pleasure Adventure trail down to the Kreuzeckbahn cable car station.  This took about 1 hour and was steep in some places.  The views were absolutely breath taking.  The ride down in this cable car was not as scary after what I had been through.  This day has been one of my favorites of our trip.  I am glad the weather was nice.  We had a great time.

Here are a few pictures from the walk between the cable car stations.

The girls had fun throwing snowballs and they wanted to climb up on some rocks.

On Friday our last full day in Garmisch we went to visit Neuschwanstein Castle.  We caught a local bus out of Garmisch and went on a 2 hour ride to get to the village of Hohenschwangau below the castle.  I could have rented a car and driven there quicker but this way I was able to enjoy the sights of the country rather than concentrating on the road.  It was a nice trip just a little long.  We arrived at the village around lunch time so we decided to eat at a restaurant in the village.  I had spatzle (germany noodle) with cheese and fried onions – it was kind of like macaroni & cheese.  Katie had spatzle with chicken and a cream sauce.  Holly had breaded pork and fries.  The meal was OK but not for the 50 euros I paid for it.  Holly & I should have just gotten a hot dog and Katie fries.  We haven’t eaten out too much on this trip so it was nice to try some Bavarian food.

After lunch we bought our tickets for the castle.  There are 2 castles to tour through, Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau.  We only went on the tour of the Neuschwanstein Castle.  From the village it is about a 30 minute walk to the castle and adding an extra 30 minutes to go to Mary’s bridge and back.  After all the walking yesterday we decided to take the bus to Mary’s bridge. t

 A picture of the castle from the bridge.

 Looking down from the bridge I was standing on.  I am going to be thankful that when I get back to Maryland the highest thing will be South Mountain.

 This is a view of Hohenschwangau Castle from Neuschwanstein.

Another view of Neuschwanstein.

Sorry Addy but we were not able to take pictures inside the castle.  I hope you liked the ones of the outside.

You can not enter the castle without being part of a tour.  They offer both German and English tours.  Our guide was hard to hear unless you were standing right next to her.  She spoke softly making it seem like we were in a library.  Only a few rooms were available to tour.  King Ludwig’s bedroom, his dressing room, his dining room.  We were  also able to go into the ballroom.  I think this was my favorite room.

We enjoyed our time in Garmisch and we’re looking forward to Munich.