Schwangau, Germany to Oberammergau, Germany – September 28, 2012

Finally, we had a perfectly sunny morning, no clouds and no rain.  We got up about 7:00 AM, so that we could pack up and get over to the Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castles to get some pictures of them in the sunny weather.  We parked in the same lot as yesterday, and went directly to the bus stop, and purchased our round trip ticket up to the Marienbrucke Bridge, the best vantage point for pictures of Neuschwanstein.   We had to shield part of the Neuschwanstein Castle with the trees to try and hide the ugly scaffolding on the left side of the Castle

It was amazing, we were a lot earlier arriving than yesterday, and of course, the early bird gets the Asian tour groups.

We purchased our bus ticket and there was no line whatsoever, but all of a sudden, we think our friends from Zermatt had followed us, and were swarming the ticket counter.  Luckily, there were two large groups, too many to all fit on a single one of the buses going to the top.  The bus arrived a few minutes later, and we proceeded up to the Marienbrucke Bridge.  Of course, we were accompanied with some of our new set of friends to the bridge, but apparently, they must have had a scheduled castle entry starting soon, so they left hurriedly, and we were all but alone on the bridge with just a few other independent guests.  It was a nice, and finally, peaceful time on the bridge.

Instead of walking down to the bottom of the trail like we did yesterday, to where the parking lots are located, we had opted to purchase a round trip bus ticket, in the interest if time.  We had also thought we would walk up to some other castle ruins on the way to Oberammergau called the Ehrenberg Castle, near Reutte, Austria.  We sort of got our wires crossed on the directions and names, and used another entry in the GPS for Ehrwald.  We actually passed by the entry for the Ehrenberg Castle Ruins, and turned in, but the actual information was on the computer, which was packed up in a suitcase.

The parking area we pulled into  to take the trails up to the castles just did not seem to be the same area I had read about, so we decided to follow the GPS.  It was later that we figured it out, we were at the correct area, but in the end, it was probably a good decision.  From the description of the castle ruins we had read about this morning on the internet, it would take about 2-3 hours total time to walk the trails to the two different castle ruins.  By the time we completed that, we would not have had much time to do anything else but head to the hotel.  The actual GPS directions we followed were to go to the town of Ehrwald, which is the vicinity of the Tyrolean Zugspitze, the cable car to the top of the Zugspitze Mountain.

According to the brochure, “At 2,962 m, the Zugspitze is the highest mountain in Germany. It is situated in the Wetterstein range, in the Northern Limestone Alps. The border between Austria (Tyrol) and Germany (Bavaria) runs between the western and the eastern peaks.“

We purchased our round trip ticket, but I don’t think there was another other way down  It was quite a ride to the top, the cable car route was really steep.  When we got to the top, it was really cold and really windy.  It appeared that they had gotten snow yesterday when we had the rain in Schwangau, there were patches of snow and ice everywhere at the top.  The elevation is close to 12,000 ft.

We were glad we had done this today because the weather was really nice, other than some clouds in the area, which from the peak, were below our altitude.  There was one area where you could climb to the actual top of the peak, but we were not prepared to do that.  I did not have any gloves, and we both did not have that much courage after we saw what the route was.  It consisted of many hand holds, some steep ladders, and some other treacherous climbing.  The signs indicated you should be an experienced climber with the proper gear to do the climb.

Again, that was not us, we could enjoy watching the others struggle just to get back onto the platform to get off of that trail.  We could see them struggling  because we went to that deck to take some pictures since the railing was less obtrusive.  Adding to the difficulty was the icy conditions, strong winds, and just cold temperatures.  We took some other photos, and then we headed down, having had enough of the cold and the gusty winds, probably 25 mph or more in velocity.  Luckily, we had considered doing this today, and other than my gloves, had taken out some additional clothes for the ascent.

The original plan for staying in Oberammergau was its proximity to the Zugspitze, knowing it was easily reached in a day trip from Oberammergau.  However, we had made the change in plans based on the weather forecast.  Nothing worse than going to the top of a mountain at 12,000 feet, and only seeing clouds, we had already done that once in Zermatt.  We think the decision was solid, we can always drive back to the Ehrenberg Castle tomorrow if the weather is not too bad, it is not that far away.

From Zugspitze, we headed on over to Oberammergau, to check in to the Gastehaus Richter, our hotel for the next two nights.  When we got there, the GPS led us to the address via a different route, so we really had a hard time actually finding it.  However, once we arrived, our hostess, Paula Richter, was sitting out front in the garden area, and greeted us upon our arrival.  The accommodations were fantastic, the room and the overall Gastehaus (Guesthouse) was just beautiful.  We were given a second floor room, with a balcony looking out over the mountains.  It is in a quieter area, about a 5 minute walk from the main town, and there were mostly single family houses in the area around us.

We walked into town, about 5 minutes away.  Oberammergau is very scenic, many of the buildings have “fresco’s” painted on the outside.  We were hungry, so we stopped for a late lunch, early dinner while in the town, and had some really good German food.  The dinner was some pork, purple cabbage, and of course, potato dumplings.  A couple of beers rounded off our great dinner.

While walking around the town, we actually found a local road heading out into some farmland, where we were able to get really nice pictures of the meadows and mountains highlighted by the setting sun.  There was even a herd of sheep in a pen, and we heard them do a Baaaa in German.

We headed back into the center of town, and walked around a while longer before walking back to the hotel.  The town is really scenic, and there are a lot of stores specializing in wood carvings, which is apparently the working tradition the town is known for, other than the Passion Play they perform every 10 years.  There were some really nice stores with giant wood carvings of Christ crucified, Mary and Joseph, etc., and I mean big, 4-5 feet tall, all hand carved and hand painted wood.

On the way back to our hotel, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up a few supplies and snacks for the room.  We had a really great day, celebrating my last day of working (albeit on vacation) from JEA.  Today was my official retirement date after 30 years and 3 months.

Hopefully, tomorrow will not be as rainy as forecast, but if so, there are several things to do here in Oberammergau, so we may just stay close by.