Visitors from the West - Phase 1 - Bavarian Tours

It was a lot of planning and a long time waiting for it to actually happen, but finally we had the opportunity to spend some time with some family. My mom and my sister's family flew in to Munich from Texas a couple of weeks ago. 

Not such a smooth start. The long flight from Dallas to London was looking good until they started a holding pattern above London due to heavy air traffic from an earlier storm. Even though the plane to Munich was still at the gate they were not allowed to catch the connecting flight. A few lines and a lot of scrambling, along with a lot of waiting, they managed to get on a later flight that evening. We did have plans to attend a classical concert at the palace near our house that evening. It was not to be as the flight arrived well after the concert. It was a shame to miss it, but we were thankful they still made it on the same day. It was certainly not the best case, but I guess it could have been worse. With Cindy and I driving both cars we were barely able to get the six of them with luggage back to our house. After some quick catching up that evening and a little bit of rest it was Saturday. We intentionally left this day open for travel recovery and to see how everyone was feeling. Late that morning we all got out for a walk through the forest area behind our house. 

We had seen some locals picking wild raspberries a few days before so we gave it a shot too. They were good.

Here is a Google Maps image of the restaurant. It is the complex of buildings in the middle of the forest. Google lines out a few of the many paths through the forest. These Germans love to explore and walk around these areas and there are major and minor paths going in every direction.

Our friend Madelon joined us for this brunch. Bernhard and my family crossed each other in the air. He was headed to Dallas on a business trip with TI over this same time period. Madelon was a huge help explaining various aspects of German and European living to everyone. It was a great start to the trip. Josh got his first taste of Condon Bleu and loved it, that is all we heard about for the rest of the two weeks. Someone please get that kid some more, of everything!

Nearby the restaurant was one of the Geocache hiding places near a nice creek in a beautiful area. We walked over there to check it out after lunch.

After spending a little time around the house we got back out that late afternoon to check out the palace where the concert was the night before. There was a wedding going on at the time in the main dining hall, but we were able to tour the rest of the place.

This is Schloss Schleissheim in Oberschleissheim very close to our house and just south of the Bergl Restaurant.

This is a complex of palaces. Above and below are the smaller gardens in between the new and old palace. We also walked around to the main gardens that are over a kilometer long connecting to the small palace on the far end Lustheim. 

The old palace is on the far left consisting of the buildings forming the rectangle. Neues Schloss is the huge structure going vertical on the mid left side and Lustheim is the small building on the far right. 

Some of the group made the walk to the far end while the rest of us drove there to pick them up. In between the kids played a little in the water fountains. By the time they reached the Lustheim palace they were not allowing any more visitors, Germans take closing time very seriously. 

Back at our house that evening we cooked out bratwurst on the grill while the kids played in the garden.

 We enjoyed a great family meal on the patio. It was a great first day. Maybe not as relaxing as it could have been, but compared to the rest of the trip, we will call it a day off.

Day 2: Upper Bavaria Tour

Even though we headed to the southern part of Germany and Bavaria, they call it the Upper Bavaria region because of the high elevation of the terrain in the beginning of the Alps. This was a private tour with Mike's Bike Tours, and our personal tour guide today was the Mike that the company is named after. Our first order of business was getting to the Munich main station known as the Hauptbahnoff. We decided to catch the S1 from the closest train station to our house, the Unterschleissheim stop. There is another stop that is almost as close and it is one stop closer to Munich in Oberschleissheim. This decision to use Unter would have some serious consequences later that day. 

We got to the Hbf just fine and met the bus. Mike showed up on time and had an unexpected extra guide. It was his brother visiting from Texas who spent the day with us too. He was a nice enough guy, but I am still confused as to why he spent the day with us on a private tour. I had discussed in depth with the operations manager where we wanted to go on this tour. Mike did not seem to know these details, but it turned out to be a good thing. We ended up going to some places I did not even know about and had a nice full day. 

The ten of us spent almost two hours in the 50 seat bus listening to Mike talk about various things. We never learned too much about a particular topic because he would have tangents to his tangents pretty often.  I give him a hard time only because we have had so many great guides using his company in the past. He was not the best at giving history or staying focused on a topic, but he does know the area and took us to some great places. 

Our fist stop was close to the Austria border at the site of the 1936 Winter Olympic Games at Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The original plan was to travel to the Zugspitze, the tallest mountain in Germany, but Mike had other plans. 

I will give him credit for his photography skills. He got some great group shots of the family all together.

We walked from the ski jump area and blindly followed Mike into the forest. The initial walk led us to a gondola lift that took us partly up a hill. It turns out we were starting at the top of the gorge and walking back down to the ski stadium. It was still a lot of walking, but thankfully most of it was down the hill.

This Google Earth view does a pretty good job showing the elevation change in a 2D picture.

Shortly after getting off of the lift we had these views. It was a beautiful day.

Still blindly following, not sure about where we are headed we came to this treacherous part of the trail. Most people slid more than they walked down this section. Thank goodness for the handrails.

Finally Mike tells us we are here, but we have no idea what here is and what we are going to see. It is the Partnach Gorge. Below we are standing at the top section of it about to enter the path. You can see the people on the far right walking in.

The below picture is looking straight up through the canyon. See the boulder trapped between the walls? Wow, this was cool.

Family shots are so tough. If Josh is not sticking out his tongue or giving his "thinking man" pose then Katherine is making a face or David is blocking out someone. We had plenty of time to work on our group picture technique.

The first part was pretty calm, but then the water really started rushing. There were parts of the path inside caves where it was almost pitch black. Some of the sections of paths were very narrow. There were people going in both directions. At times you had to hug the cliff to let others pass before you could continue. It was pretty crazy.

We saw a couple of nice waterfalls. This one was towards the end.

 When I turned around and saw this "entrance" to the gorge, at the bottom of the mountain, I was happy that we had a guide with us. He took us from the other direction and I am glad.

There was a little snack place just outside of the gorge area where we loaded up for the rest of the day.

After lunch we took a little drive to our next stop, one of three castles that Bavarian King Ludwig II had commissioned. Linderhof Palace.

Mike's description of this palace in German was "klein aber fein" or small but fine. With such a jam packed day we did not have time to go inside. Mike gave us some information about it and we walked around the grounds for a while. 

Mike just about got taken out by this older traditional Bavarian couple. He tried to touch this guys goat beard furry thing. They were a nice couple who stopped to explain to Mike the meaning behind the colors and symbols on the lederhosen. 

Okay people, I worked really hard to get the random people out of the foreground above and the background below. We were not the only ones there I can promise you.

Love this picture with the huge tree. Below was a side part of the garden.

Great example of traditional Bavarian architecture with the Bavarian Alps in the backdrop.

Once again we were on the road, this time headed towards the Schwangau area to see the most famous Ludwig castle Neuschwanstein and the castle where he grew up right next door, Hohenschwangau.

We got some heavy rain on the way between Linderhof and Neuschwanstein. Our plans for riding the Alpine Slide and swimming in the lake were being dashed. By the time we arrived though, the slide was opening back up and the weather was clearing. Everyone took a turn or two on the slide. 

 I like the below pic with the palace in the background. My kids wanted to splash around in this play area. I could not believe how cold this water was. I had flash backs to my high school basketball days icing my ankles. It was that cold. Katherine ventured into it more than David, she is crazy.

The Ferguson Four had been inside Neuschwanstein before so we opted for the opportunity to see the older palace of Ludwig's parents Hohenschwangau. The inside was very different than anything we had seen over the past year. The rooms were small and very nicely decorated. It was nice to see something this old still in original condition. This area survived the world wars. Below is another nice pic with Neuschwanstein in the background. 

While Hohenschwangau is on top of a hill, Neuschwanstein is on a much larger hill. I made that climb once before. Maybe I should have stressed more to the rest of the group how much of a climb it is. They did this after already walking around for most of the day. I think I am still in trouble for this, especially after opting for the other palace and not being a part of this effort. 

The problem with the Neuschwanstein climb is that you reach the outer walls and mentally think you are there. You soon realize the outer wall is well below the actual entrance to the castle. It is another hike to get to the door. It is yet another uphill climb to get to the bridge where you get the money shot of the castle. Finally, those round columns on the palace, those are staircases. If I remember there are about 35 steps between each level and there are three or four levels during the tour. Yeah, they will not forget about this anytime soon. It was the first time this trip that everyone walked more than anticipated, it will not be the last time, not even for this day........

Great pictures from the other group. Below is from the balcony of Neuschwanstein and one of my favorite views looking at Hohenschwangau and the Alpsee, the deep mountain lake.

Above is the bridge that Ludwig's mother had built for her hikes. It is now where you go to get the below view of the palace.

The Ferguson Four made it to the Alpsee first, hehe, after our shorter hike. The kids got in the water and really did some swimming to my surprise. It was still pretty chilly water but they went for it.

The rest of the group made it back and took a minute to cool the feet off. I am pretty sure I saw some steam coming from the water, and maybe the ears too. 

The ride back to Munich was pretty quiet. It was a really really full day. 

One stop off at the world famous Hofbrauhaus for dinner. It was good. 

On the way back to the train we found a little treat.

It was a reasonably short walk to Marienplatz from Hofbrauhaus to catch the S1 back to Unterschleissheim. It had been a long hard day of fun and we had made it a long way back. The S1 made it all the way back to Oberschleissheim, just one stop away from our cars and a five minute drive to the house. We sat at the stop and waited. A short time later we get an announcement in German. I ask one group close to me to translate, on the other end of the train car Cindy asks someone else. There has been an accident or suicide or something on the track between Ober and Unter stops. The train could go no further and was going back towards Munich. Cindy and I had left from Ober so many times before, why did we do Unter this time? It was around 11:30PM after an early start and a very physical day full of activity. Ten people late at night, the buses are no longer running, the train will not be going anytime soon, who knows how to get a taxi this late and how many will we need? Our only choice, get to walking. 

There was a little shorter route through the forest, but I was not going to drag everyone through a pitch dark forest in the middle of the night. Google is a little optimistic with the time estimate. It took us about an hour to cover the two unexpected miles late into the night. You can see we covered the length of the Schleissheim grounds three times over. After getting home Cindy and I jumped on our bicycles to retrieve the cars at the Unterschleissheim stop, we did not see any trains running still. It was early Monday morning by the time we all got to bed. It was a wonderful day, even with the challenges. Next up on the agenda is a bike tour of Munich and another Upper Bavaria tour.