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Published: April 29th 2006
Christmas Morning
We awoke to fresh snow falling. It is constantly snowing in this part of Germany. You can see just how much snow has piled up in this guy's driveway thus far this Winter.With a comfortable night’s rest and nice hot showers we assembled in the breakfast room at 8:30 just as we told Sissy the night before. We requested hot chocolate and got two very warm pots full. We were given two baskets full of bread and those wonderful hard rolls. Cassie, Gail and her Mom were satisfied with the jellies and honey. Tyler, Gen and I fought over the meat and cheese platter. Every other day Sissy’s chickens must lay eggs and Christmas Day we were given soft-boiled eggs.
We wasted little time in re-piling into the VW and hoped to find something to do on a Sunday Christmas Day. Sissy and Klaus had told us that Christmas Eve (Heilige Abend) was actually a bigger holiday for the Bavarians so we had hopes of finding something to entertain us. I drove East toward Ramsau to show Gen the most photographed church in Germany. Again my memory failed me and we were 5 miles past Ramsau on a twisty, winding alpine road with snow beginning to fall when I decided to turn back. We were fascinated by all the wheeled metal cans lining the cutouts on this road. We learned that they
Cassie enjoys another Frühstück
We're waiting for our hot, hot chocolate to cool off. were fresh milk containers and saw a truck coming by on Sunday Christmas Day to collect the milk. There was no dirty, cinder-laden snow at any point on this trip. Fresh snow seemed to fall every night and the Germans don’t use the same black crap we use on our Pennsylvania roads.
When I was ready to give up on the idea of finding this church, Gail directed me to another rural highway road branching off from the one we were on. It led along the creek I was looking for and we soon found the old church. The place was hopping and the adjacent parking lot was full. Since I only wanted to stop for a couple pictures, I parked illegally in front of a storefront. We walked up toward the church; my intention just to show everyone the quaint graveyard with its wooden grave markers and its many candles. On a previous visit I was quite moved by the many graves of local villagers killed during World War II. I was ready to leave and head back in the opposite direction to take the obligatory postcard-like photo of the church when Gail and her Mom led the
Milk cans ready for pickup
These carts with big milk cans on them seemed to be in every driveway along the road as we headed out of Berchtesgaden toward Ramsau. Even on Christmas Day the central dairy had trucks out to collect these containers. group up past the church and up to another graveyard on a hillside overlooking the church. With my still wonky knee and fearing the possibility of some angry villagers smashing my rental, I headed back toward the car. Since no one was there I walked across the street and on to the tiny wooden bridge over the creek. I took a couple shots of the church before deciding to warm up back in the van. The others were still up in the graveyard when I returned to the VW. Trying to entertain myself while Gail and her Mom mosied along, I decided to read the car manual in the glovebox. Guess what I found in there? A DVD for the GPS system! I popped it in and after a couple minutes of playing around (a real man never reads the manual) I got the sucker working. I punched in our next destination, the Königsee, and a lovely German women started telling me where to go, auf Deutsch.
Once I got the group back in the vehicle I told them about the GPS disc. They were kind of ho-hum about it at first. My computer science major son was more
Gazing down into the Ramsau valley
When I got lost trying to find Ramsau, we kept climbing higher and higher above the valley where I wanted to be. interested in his girlfriend that our new German speaking friend. My memory finally clicked and I found the Königsee in just a few minutes. We were stunned to find a gated entrance to the parking lot. We reluctantly paid the 3€ entrance fee and parked in the virtually empty lot. There were a few people at the other end of the parking lot utilizing the Jenner ski area. We headed down an unshoveled and minimally plowed streets to the center of the tiny village. None of the gift shops or souvenir stands were open, nor were any of the snack kiosks. Only a little pretzel stand was open. Still a pretty decent sized crowd of people stood down at the lake waiting to take an electric powered boat ride across the unfrozen Königsee. One of the hotel restaurants appeared to be open too. I don’t remember seeing any “tourists”. Everyone looked to be an old German out for a Sunday Christmas Day stroll. Many carried a single ski pole as a walking stick. When we were in Munich we noticed a few last minute shoppers running around with newly purchased ski poles. Maybe they’re a popular Christmas present for old
folks. After standing around watching the ducks, geese and the huge swans, we decided to walk over to the bobsled run. I had debated whether bringing winter boots would make sense because of the limited room in my suitcase. I opted not to bring them with me and wore sneakers instead. Walking through the ice and snow around Königsee convinced me I made a big mistake. As another snow squall descended on us, we walked into the completely deserted bobsled run. In a week it was to host a major pre-Olympic competition. I hoped to see somebody taking some practice runs but even though the track looked to be in fine shape, we were about the only people walking around. Everyone seemed entertained by this stop but I gathered the group together and took us back to our van. On the way we bought one cheese and one chocolate pretzel. The sodas we had bought the day before in Munich had sat in the car all this time. When we opened them they were the consistency of a Slurpee and absolutely great.
Next on my agenda was to drive up to the Obersalzburg to see the Hitler Complex. This
Pfarrkirche Ramsau graveyard
We walked up toward the church; my intention was simply to show everyone the quaint graveyard with its wooden grave markers and its many candles. On a previous visit I was quite moved by the many graves of local villagers killed during World War II. To the right of this shot are wreaths placed in memory of the WWII dead.
part of Berchtesgaden was Hitler’s Camp David and the place where he met with Neville Chamberlain and Mussolini. All the Nazis had villas in the area and all had been destroyed when the American troops captured the town late in the War. On previous visits we had found some of the old foundations, bunkers and walls and I thought they might interest the others. After negotiating our way through hairpin turns, steep climbs and around precipitous turns, we ran into much heavier snow in the Obersalzburg area. The information center and souvenir stand I remembered from my last visit was gone as were the remains of the SS barracks. In fact, the entire road seemed different. After driving around in total confusion for a few minutes, I realized that what was once the
General Walker Hotel (a recreational area hotel for American servicemen) was now a museum dedicated to explaining the history of the era. During the Hitler years the building was called the “Platterhof”. It was used to house the common folk that hoped to meet or see der Führer. I couldn’t find any of the other stuff I knew was in the area. I assumed the deep snow was hiding
much of what I remembered. We started to drive down the mountain then I saw a sign for the zum Türken Hotel. I recalled that the hotel was built on some of the tunnels running between the old Nazi buildings. We came upon most of the old ruins I remembered almost as soon as we turned on to this road. There was nowhere to stop with all the old snow piled up on the roadside. The snow that was coming down also concerned me. No one else in the van was as much a WWII buff as myself so I decided to save this for a return visit. Seeing these old Nazi sites is both fascinating and creepy at the same time. It’s kind of like passing a car accident. You can’t help but look even though you know it’s really bad. Since it was only 3:00 I decided we had time for more sightseeing.
We headed down the mountain, and out of the snow, toward Salzburg. Finding the B-305, the road I wanted the night before, we were in Salzburg in only 15 minutes. This whole area fascinates me. Sometime I have to come back and spend a
This is the first time I ever saw real candles burning on real Christmas trees.
In Germany the dead remain in the ground only about 70 years or for as long as family members are willing to pay for them to stay interred. After that the remains are excavated and then cremated. The Germans, and most Europeans, don't believe in wasting precious real estate on the dead.
few days hiking through the little villages and backroads on the German-Austrian border. Gail suggested we go back into Salzburg for Bosna since they were supposed to be open. We drove all the way into the old town, parked in the Altstadt garage again, and walked to the Getreidegasse. The only thing open on that end of the alley was the Balkan Grill. Today the tiny dining room actually had a table for 4 available while couples occupied the other two booths. We took turns sitting down and eating our Bosnas then headed right back to the garage. On Sunday Christmas Day they charged us 4€ for about an hour of parking. With a few rays of sunshine still peeking through I programmed the GPS and headed toward one of the beautiful lakes in the Salzkammergut area, Mondsee.
With Helga, our GPS guide, leading us I eventually learned what “Nach rechts abbiegen dann Links halten” meant. The GPS not only displayed a map that showed you where you were and what direction you were going, but it gave your expected arrival time and indicated how far it was until the next turn or traffic circle. In Mondsee we walked
around the little town in the approaching twilight. A souvenir stand was actually open so the girls bought a couple postcards. I pointed out the church that hosted Maria and the Captain’s wedding in the Sound of Music. We decided to go inside and spent a half hour admiring the gilded altar and the sprigs of evergreens adorning the entire interior. We were impressed with the large Nativity scene in one of the side chapels. Burning candles everywhere we looked reminded us that this was a very Catholic area. As a Protestant I’m awed by the European Catholics’ pre-occupation with the death of Christ. Bloody crucifixes in every corner of every church make me a little nervous. But I still maintain that someday I’ll probably turn Catholic. It seems to me that we Protestants are taking a kind of shortcut to Heaven while the Catholics seem much more serious about the whole thing. It takes a lot more commitment to be a good Catholic than it takes to be a good Lutheran or Methodist.
I was really pleased and surprised that we found so much to see and do on a day where everything is shut down. We decided
to keep exploring the area. In the 5:30 darkness we set the GPS for a detour to Sankt Wolfgang, another spot Gail and I had taken her Mom and her late husband to back in 1987. The snow had let up a bit and only flurries impeded our half hour ride to this quaint lakeside village. We parked and walked over to the town’s tiny Christmas Market of 2 stalls. An open fire warmed us as we passed by. We walked over to the hotel we stayed in years ago,
the Weisses Rossl. In the old days Gail and I could afford Romantik Hotels like this because we got a 50%!a(MISSING)irline employee discount. Now it looked too expensive for us plebeians to even walk into. The hotel’s shops were actually open. The ladies somehow spent twenty minutes looking through a 15X20 foot Swarovski crystal store while Tyler and I froze our butts outside. He and I then walked up to a little church overlooking the Wolfgangsee. Below us we could see a lighted green swimming pool. Then we heard voices and actually saw a couple kids in their trunks dipping themselves into the lake from a dock next to the pool.
After screaming they would then run and jump into the pool. We could see whiffs of steam rising from the pool as they warmed themselves. When everyone finished their crystal shopping we walked toward the waterfront. A couple of gargantuan swans approached us. I think we could have petted them if we wanted but with the Avian flu going around and not wanting to lose any fingers, I backed off. A nice souvenir store was just closing but Gail and her Mom got inside in time to buy a couple postcards. Next door was yet another tourist shop where I bought myself a couple containers of the salt which is mined nearby.
On our way back we made our first stop for gas, or should I say “diesel”. We had noticed that in Germany diesel was .20€ cheaper per liter than regular gas. In Austria their diesel prices were .20€ cheaper than the German prices. So instead of paying about $4.90 per gallon of diesel in Germany, we were about to pay about $4.00 per gallon in Austria. I had no idea how much fuel this monster van was gonna take, especially after cruising at 80mph on the highway.
I was surprised that we only took 41 liters or about 11 gallons. We saved almost $10 buying our fuel in Austria.
As we headed back to Berchtesgaden Helga directed me on the same route that I didn’t want on the previous night. We wound up driving through Bad Reichenhall again and once again we saw nowhere to stop for dinner. Maybe we should have stopped in Salzburg for dinner but I was gambling on finding somewhere in Downtown Berchtesgaden again. We parked in the same area as the night before, but as soon as we entered the pedestrian zone we noticed a welcoming inn alight with Christmas decorations and menu boards where none had been the previous night.
The Gasthof Goldener Bär had a full menu available and even used an English translation. We ordered the now familiar white wine for Grandma, wheat beer for me, regular beer for Gail, Gen had Zitrone and Cokes for Cassie and Tyler. Gail ordered Gulaschsuppe and Bratwürst mit Kartoffelsalat , Tyler and Gen opted for Jägerschnitzel mit Pommes Frites (Tyler scrapes off the mushrooms), Grandma, Cassie and I ordered Gulasch over Spätzle again. It was absolutely delicious. Even I was stuffed, after finishing Tyler’s
Mondsee Church
This is the church used in the wedding scene of Sound of Music. mushrooms. We took a short walk through town again and plotted our shopping strategy for the next day. We expected everything to be open on Monday. I was gonna get a Tyrolean hat, Gail and her Mother wanted postcards and souvenirs and Cassie had her eye on some boots. When we got tired of freezing, we returned back to the Stöckl. Sissy was dieing to make us our “Hi Drinks”. We sat in the breakfast nook and watched some German TV with the other hotel guest, Martina, while Sissy made us delicious cocktails topped by an unusual, but tasty cherry. Klaus tried to help Tyler take a few links out of his brand new gift from Gen, a Fossil watch, but they had no luck. The next day we would add seeing a jeweler to our list. We were in bed by 10:30.
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Deborah
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Berchtesgaden - bobsled run?
I love you pics. As a child I spent a few days there, with my family of course. My mother siad that we hiked up the bobsled run (I don't remember that!) and from there went to a children's cemetary (this I do remember). I'm wondering-- are these the same places you went to?