We got back from our trip to the Alps (Garmisch) Monday night, and I was overjoyed to get to sleep in our bed. The views may be incredible in Garmisch, but the beds and pillows at the hotel are nicht sehr gut (not so good).
We got to Garmisch fairly late on Thursday (around 8:45), and barely made it to dinner at the hotel. The restaurant closed at 9, so we were lucky! We decided to change up our schedule and ski on Saturday and Sunday and explore the town some on Friday. In the late morning on Friday, after enjoying the breakfast buffet at the hotel, we decided to tour the Zugspitze. The Zugspitze is the highest mountain in Germany, at 2962 meters or 9718 feet.
The trip up was great. We took a train 40 minutes up to the Eibsee, a really beautiful lake. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see the lake, because it was frozen and covered with snow. However, I have seen pictures of it before and know it looks gorgeous in the summertime. From the Eibsee, we took a cable car the rest of the way up the mountain. Strangely enough, I didn’t think it was scary. The views were amazing, and I had never been up that high except in an airplane, so I was pretty excited.
We walked around the top observation area and even got to walk a bit into Austria from up there (the mountain is on the German/Austrian border). We walked a few steps in to the Austrian state of Tirol and could see a few Austrian towns, one of which is called Lermoos. I believe we have driven through there at least once or twice on our way to Garmisch. When we were done exploring, we went down one level to “Deustchlands höchster Biergarten” (Germany’s highest beer garden). We each had a small German lunch and beer. What I failed to realize, however, is that one beer at 2900 meters is going to affect me differently than one beer at sea level. We got up from lunch to head back down a different cable car to the railway, and I was surprised to discover that I was a bit tipsy. Luckily, I got to rest for a few minutes before the cable car came. In the meantime, John played with my face (photos of this are toward the end of the slide show).
To help give you an idea of where we were in relation to other things, go to this Google map. You can see the Bayern/Tirol line along the point marked A. The “A point” is the Zugspitze. Bayern is what the Germans call Bavaria, and as I mentioned before, Tirol (Tyrol) is an Austrian state. If you click on “map” instead of “satellite” in the upper right corner of the map and zoom out 3 times, you can see how close it is to Italy as well. Neat, huh?
I have to go get some other things done, so I will write about the rest of our trip later today, including how my first experience skiing went!
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