Alpine Adventure (take two)

I mentioned in the first part of this blog post that we had a great guesthouse in a lovely area but there was one further perk.........they gave you a free bus-pass for travel within the local area. This meant that we could go and visit all the little towns around Lake Tegernsee that we had seen from the boat without having to drive.......... hence no parking problems and no worries if I wanted a beer (result!!)
Here are some of the places we went to on the bus, starting with the town of Tegernsee itself:

Beautiful street in Tegernsee old town

Me in Tegernsee

Loved the giant Lego Drindl Girls

View from Tegernsee lakeside cafe

After some lunch at Tegernsee we hopped back on the bus to the little town at Gmund, which was a much quieter town, mainly for those who liked to mess about in boats.

View from beach at Gmund



Yachts at Gmund

So after a leisurely stroll and an ice cream in Gmund it was back in the bus and off to our next stop Bad Wiessee.
Unsurprisingly Bad Wiessee was also a lovely place to visit, it had lots of nice walks along the lake-side, with plenty of outdoor café/bars where you grab a coffee (or beer) and watch the world go by:

Big Tour Boat heading to Bad Weissee

Cheers

A lake-side drink in Bad Wiessee

Up to now I haven't mentioned the wildlife in the Tegernsee area, well here goes:
Being at the side of a lake you would obviously expect to see some sort of wildfowl and the most populous of these was the coot, many with their young cootlings (sorry made that name up):

Coot on underwater post

Coot with Cootlings

 There were also a few Red-crested Pochard dotted about:

Red-crested Pochard

Another Red-crested Pochard

And some Great-crested Grebe, which seemed less shy than those we get back home, and they had cute youngsters on board (literally) as well:

Great-crested Grebe with two Grebelings

The bird we saw most of was the cheeky sparrow, which hung around the lake-side cafes in the hope that you would drop a crumb or two, if not they would come to your plate and help themselves. No pictures of these sparrows or of the many Swifts that zoomed about above our heads.
With regards to mammals we did not see too much. The top species to see in the Bavarian Alps are the Chamois (a goat-antelope) and the Marmot (you either love it or hate it) but we saw none of these. We did see Alpine cattle and we also saw a Muskrat (as featured in Deputy Dawg) which was living in a lodge under the harbour wall in Bad Wiessee:

Muskrat at Bad Wiessee

We had seen these previously in Wisconsin so knew what it was, although the locals seemed a bit bemused by its presence. They are not native to Bavaria but were 'introduced' from North America about 1930/1940. It is a bit like a small beaver without the flat tail.
That is about all from our trip to Southern Bavaria so I will leave you with a couple of sunsets from the little café where we enjoyed a couple of meals in Tegernsee:

Sunset from Tegernsee Cafe

Sunset over Lake Tegernsee

Hope you enjoyed the blog

cheers

TeddyEdward

Alpine Adventure

Recently returned from a very enjoyable holiday in Southern Bavaria so I thought I would share some of the highlights with you.
We were based in a lovely little guesthouse in a small town called Rottach on the southern shore of Lake Tegernsee (around 50 miles south of Munich). The guesthouse owners were very friendly and we had a great room with a balcony that overlooked the foothills of the Bavaria Alps, and in particular a hill called Wallberg. I say hill but at 1722metres (about 5680 feet in old money) Mount Wallberg is a good 1,000 feet higher than Ben Nevis.


Our Guesthouse (our balcony was top right)



Mount Wallberg from Guesthouse Balcony

There were lots of lovely walks in and around the Rottach area and you had the option of a country walk along the riverside, a stroll down to the lakeside, a saunter along the main road with its 'exclusive' shops (you know the ones with no prices displayed) or just a gentle amble around the neighbourhood eying up the lovely (and very expensive) properties.
 

Rottach Riverside Walk



Some beautiful Rottach properties

Nice little log cabin

  We managed to do all of the above during our stay, and lots more.........

You could also take a boat trip on Lake Tegernsee and visit the various towns dotted around the lake such as Bad Weissee, Gmund and the town of Tegernsee itself. Our plan was to get on the boat at Rottach and sail over to Tegernsee town for a visit, but due to my poor use of the German language (or the guile of the ticket seller) we ended up on a round trip tour of the lake.
However it turned out to be an excellent trip and well worth the money (about a tenner each), here are some of the many photos I took on the boat trip:

Leaving Rottach

Rottach Church and Shoreline

Little Tour Boat Passing

Gmund from boat

 

Looking south down Lake Tegernsee

Enjoying the boat trip

Enjoying the boat trip

 I forgot to mention they served food (and beer) on the boat.
The weather was brilliant when we were on the boat (and for most of the holiday) not too hot, not too cold, but dry and ideal for walking about and sightseeing. There was little breeze so the water was very calm and very, very blue........I could not get over how clear the water in the rivers feeding Lake Tegernsee were and the fantastic azure colour of the lake water!!
As well as all the lovely walks we could take around the Rottach area (and the boat trips) we also had a hire car so could travel a little further afield. So one day we decided to drive to nearby Schliersee and visit the area my grandfather originally came from.
Once again the weather was really good, a bit hotter than when we were on Lake Tegernsee, however this time we stayed on dry land even though a boat trip on the Lake Schliersee was available. We had visited Schliersee before in November 2013 and this time it was nice to see it without two feet of snow on the ground.

 

Across the lake to Schliersee

Me at Schliersee

 



Schliersee Maypole

Lake Schliersee tour boat

 Heading out of Schliersee we drove further into the Alps, heading uphill to the mountain lake of Spitzingsee, some 1080 metres (3,500 feet) above sea level. I thought it would be a little colder here but as the lake sits in a bowl surrounded by mountains it was surprisingly warm. This is mainly a ski resort and some of the hotels were not open, but we did find a nice inn to have a beer and a snack and watch the world go by:

Lake Spitzingsee

The town of Spitzingsee

 I liked the pedalos on Lake Spitzingsee as they were shaped like Ferraris......


Ferrari pedalo on Spitzingsee

It was like Wacky Races on the road downhill from Spitzingsee as Porsche raced motor bikes with us somewhere in the middle, but we survived.
Talking about hills (or mountains) do you remember that hill at the back of our guesthouse:

Bavaria, beer, balcony, bliss

Yeah that one, Mount Wallberg, well we decided that the next day we were going to climb it.
When I say 'climb it' I meant climb the steps up to the cable car then traverse the hill that way. So that is what we did and we were not disappointed, the views were epic:

Cable Car to Mount Wallberg

Lake Tegernsee from Wallberg (Rottach foreground)

Moira and Church on Wallberg

The real Alps

Alpine Grazing Meadow

High

Where's Wally

More foothills

 Not only were the views spectacular but there were lots of lovely wildflowers and butterflies about. The flowers were easy to photograph but the butterflies would not sit still, I did however snap a small Fritillary (don't ask me what species....... I'll leave that up to the experts):

Wildflowers on Slopes

Wildflower Meadow

Wallberg Fritillary

It was hard to believe that we were higher than Ben Nevis but still in the foothills, and that we hadn't had to climb up, easy-peasy this Munro-bagging.
After some well earned coffee and biscuits we headed back down the mountain, jumped in the car and went for a drive along the Alpenstrasse which snakes it's way through the valley toward the Alps.
We stopped at yet another beautiful little village called Kreuth for a spot of lunch (no beer this time as I was driving) followed by a gentle stroll through the woods and alongside the river:

Church at Kreuth



River Weisbach at Kreuth

We drove further along the Alpenstrasse until we (almost) reached the Austrian border, stopping for some strawberry cake and coffee before we headed back to Rottach. It's hard work all this mountaineering, you have to keep your calorie intake up.

So that was basically the first half of our holiday over...............yes there is more to come...........but I will save it for the next instalment of 'Alpine Adventure'. Meanwhile I leave you with a lovely sunset over the lakeside from Strandbad Point in Rottach:

Sunset over Lake Tegernsee from Strandbad Point

Take care,

Teddy Edward