Day Trip to Oberammergau

Last weekend we headed south of Munich towards the German Alps area to a little town called Oberammergau. We drove through this Bavarian village last summer during our family tour to Linderfof and Neischwanstein palaces. We liked it so much we had to come back and take a closer look.
This time it was just Cindy and I on a date day. Katherine had been invited to spend the night with a friend and David was spending the day with one of his friends before they joined us to spend the night at our house. This is David's friend Drew and it was his last weekend in Germany before moving back to northern California. Katherine was with a friend from last year that no longer attends BIS but we are trying to keep them in contact with each other. So this was cool, no kids for the day.

It was yet another dreary day in Germany. I have lost count on how many days it has been since we have seen the sun. The temperatures have been just above freezing day and night with overcast or drizzle 100% of the time. It is foggy every morning until midday then the low overcast clouds until it is dark around 4:45. The fog was not stopping us on this Saturday morning. After getting the kids dropped off we headed south. There is no snow at any of the nearby slopes so we did not have to deal with any traffic again this week. As we got within a few kilometers of Oberammergau we passed through another small village called Ettal. There is a huge monastery here that we were going to visit on our way back. Driving down the road we passed by this wood carving shop and did something that we never do. We turned around and made an unplanned stop at this random wood shop.

When we pulled up there was a some equipment and a trailer in the drive blocking most of the parking area. They were in the process of putting this wood bear up on the pedestal. I parked in the only spot I could behind the trailer. I was totally in the way, but we were just going to make a quick stop. The guys working did not object so we went inside the shop. We were mostly looking for a hand carved wood nativity set. He had one on display but we did not like it. We looked a little more and started to head out. The shop owner caught on the way out and immediately started speaking English to us. At the time we were not sure how he knew, but it was fine with us. He kind if got on to us about leaving so quickly. He could not understand how we could be done looking at his "art" so quickly. Then he asked us if we saw the nativity sets in the down stairs area of the shop. For the next 90 minutes we were at the shop picking out and purchasing the set that we had imagined. I had to move my car a couple of time during the process, but he was nice about it. The guy did a great job at getting us to stay and talking about his work and why it is different than what we would see in  Oberammergau. He talked a lot. Mostly about the guy next door to him and other "fake" carvers that just have "crap" shipped in every week and sell it on the cheap. He explained to us how they prepare the wood to ensure it will never crack and these figures can be passed from one generation to the next.

Above is the shop and behind is the house where he lives. The pictures of the nativity set are at the end of the post. We finally got out of the wood shop and drove down the road to our original destination.

Oberammergau is such a small town and there were very few people around. We were hungry so we stopped at an Italian place that had six tables in a quaint little room. We were the only ones there and enjoyed a nice meal. We bundled back up and hit the streets to look around and shop. There were several wood carving shops and many of them had prices similar to what we paid in Ettal. I have no idea if the workmanship is equal or if the wood was prepared the same way, but it really didn't matter. We never found anything else that we liked even close to what we bought, so our purchase was validated to us.

As we started walking around and looking at the little shops there was something odd. English, all we heard was English. Very loud obnoxious American English. I had actually mentally prepared myself to be ready to struggle with communication all day today because we were going to this remote Bavarian village. No way did anybody here speak English. It turned out to be the opposite. All of the tourists were Americans and all of the shop owners spoke perfect English. This town is known as the home of the Passion Play. It only happens every ten years and we are in the middle of the period now, so no chance we will be here when it happens. The Passion Play is a performance that dates back to the 16th century about the life of Jesus. Because of this play it is a tourist destination. The tour buses make this a regular stop for those touring Bavaria. Now it was starting to make sense for the wood carving guy in Ettal to start speaking in English to us, they are just used to it around here. For Cindy and I it was weird. For so long we have wanted to hear English, but here it was a little embarrassing. I don't know where this group was from but they were loud and they never shut their mouths. Besides the wood carving shops there was mostly souvenir shops selling cheap stuff, not much other hand made one of kind type things to see.

We still had a lot of fun walking around and seeing all of the painted Bavarian style homes and shops. After all it was the town that we wanted to see. In the end I think it is a little more commercial than what we expected, especially compared to our Germany experience so far. We have the opinion that capitalism does not exist in Germany at any level. Most things are not over commercialized and do not cater to the consumer at all. Here it seems like they have to do that a little or there is no reason for people to stop here for the other nine years of each decade. We still saw some shops that close at 13:00 on Saturdays, they don;t care if that is a potential day for heavy foot traffic. That is what we are used to seeing.

As I said, we still really enjoyed the day. The town is very picturesque and wonderful to see without dealing with crowds. There used to be a Christmas market here this time of year. They stopped doing it this year because someone kept vandalizing the booths. I don't think this place really needs an outdoor Christmas market. It has plenty of shops that sell the same things year round. Cindy and I concluded that the shop owners were the vandals, or the "anarchists" as the story translated from German to English. They did not want to sit outside to sell their stuff or let other outsiders come to town to take away business. That is our theory.

The below picture was as we walked back to the car. In the middle of all of these Bavarian homes this castle looking structure was sticking up. For fun I did look it up on the Internet. It was built in 1890 by some German who later moved to America. Now it is just someones home.

Next we headed back towards Ettal and stopped at the large monastery. The tour group that we saw in the last village was here now. We did a quick tour inside the abbey and then went on to find the souvenir shop. We were seeing snow falling for the first time this winter.

The experienced savvy travelers that we are, we found the map of the grounds and located the brewery. All I wanted was a mug from another monastery brewery. We ended up behind the abbey at the brewery where we found another tour group finishing up a brewery tour. We walked around aimlessly looking for the brewery shop. It was frustrating going level to level walking around this place with no people and no signage on where to go. We finally walked in on another tour and the monk stopped to ask us if we needed help. He told us where to go, a bit cryptic if I do say so, and we went in that direction. In the end the shop that we were looking for we had walked by twice already, it just didn't look like a shop and really did not look open from the outside area. Regardless, we found it and I got my mug.

We did a little more walking around but made our way back to the car. We picked up David and Drew and Katherine made it home on Sunday.

This was an additional purchase from the wood shop. You can't tell the size from the picture. It is a single piece of wood with the holy family carved into it. It is about a foot tall and eight inches wide. It was something that we just had to have in addition to our nativity set.

The nativity set is made for our house in Allen, In our Germany house it takes up half of the living room. The base and house is as big as the coffee table. It is a wood house with some stone. All of the figures are hand carved out of maple then hand painted.

The detail is pretty amazing, we think anyway. We love it.  

No more Christmas markets planned in Germany this season. We are taking a weekend off this week to get ready for our big trip to London over the Christmas. There probably will not be another post until after that trip starts. Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family. Stay safe, love to all.