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The Snow Waits for No Man
When I woke up early and went out on my balcony there was a blizzard going on. By the time I went back in, loaded the batteries into my camera and came back out, it had stopped. You can see snow on the rooftops though.When I woke in the morning and went to look out at the view from my balcony I found myself standing in the middle of a snow squall. As I stood out there gazing up at the Alps towering above us a local train flashed past less than 100 yards from the hotel. If any trains went by last night, I never heard them. Cassie had had enough of my snoring and slept in Grandma’s and Gail’s room.
It took forever for my travelmates to get ready for breakfast. I lay in bed watching TV for nearly an hour waiting for them. When Cassie, Gail and Grandma were finally ready, Tyler and Gen were still showering. We went down to the dining room without them.
The breakfast didn’t disappoint. All the things I love about German/Austrian Fruhstucks were present: the cold cuts, cheese, rolls, soft-boiled eggs and even hot chocolate. We sat at the same big table we sat at for dinner. After my first plateful Tyler and Gen joined us. By now the snow had stopped but the sky was still overcast and threatened with more snow.
Because of the weather threat and the fact that we
Stocking Up for the Day
Tyler came down to eat after the rest of us had already consumed all the soft-boiled eggs and most of the big hard rolls. You have to learn to hurry in this family or you don't eat. were staying here another night I decided to spend the morning touring the immediate vicinity. I didn’t feel too comfortable braving slippery roads with our front wheel drive van. If a big storm came we could easily hustle back to the Bauerngirgl and spend the day exploring Bad Reichenhall on foot.
We finally left the hotel close just after 10am. We headed South to
Berchtesgaden just a few minutes away. We found a near empty public parking lot about halfway up the hill leading to Berchtesgaden’s commercial center. Those walks we had taken back home with the dogs made this ascent seem easy. We even passed the strolling locals as we made our way up toward the pedestrian zone. As usual almost every store was closed this Sunday.
We spent about an hour in Berchtesgaden mostly looking in tourist shops. We bought a couple of tall beer glasses anticipating the start of a new tradition once we got home. Walking further up the main street we were surprised to find a woodworker’s shop open for business. He only had a very few handmade wood items, but his shop was full of many of the same kind of objects
Strolling Through Berchtesgaden
The weather wasn't beautiful but the snow held off so we were happy to take a walk through the little town. We probably should've stopped right where we were to sample that old authentic German favorite, Donerkebab. we’d seen the day before in Salzburg. And this guy’s prices were much better. We found ourselves a new bell for the collection at home, a couple of kitchen witches for friends, a unique metal beer serving tray and another metal beer sign. All this for about $30.00.
From there we headed back to the van. The weather was actually improving a bit. Back at the parking lot we all ran for the public restrooms. One of the best things about Germany is that they don’t seem to have little old ladies sitting in each and every bathroom expecting a tip.
For the first time in thirty years of travel in Germany, a German’s dog actually came running up to me. Usually German pets are well-trained and totally aloof. You can’t even get them to look at you when you make squeaky noises. This German Shepherd mix was off his leash and exploring the parking lot when I exited the men’s room. He came running up to me and let me scratch his ears while his master apologized. I just smiled and said “schoen” (pretty). I assume that made them feel better as they hurried away.
We
Gloomy Gus
Guess who was waiting for a refill of coffee? still had no plan in mind as we hopped in the van. We decided to take a ride past some of the old Nazi ruins on the opposite mountainside. We spent about half an hour riding up and down the Obersalzburg marveling at how different it looks today compared to the days when it was a thriving U.S. military recreational area. Even the old General Walker Hotel which served as cheap accommodations for servicemen and their families was gone. In its stead is a museum dedicated to the history of the Nazi regime. I’ve heard it’s fascinating but nobody else felt like spending hours in a museum. Next time.
I absolutely love this corner of Germany. I was driving with no real goal in mind. Just looking around at all the snow filling the deep valleys and covering the wooden hay sheds proved interesting to me. There are so many tiny little places offering “Zimmer Frei” all over the area. How could we have such a hard time finding a place last night? Every farm advertised rooms and each town we drove through had at least two Inns or Pensions. Unfortunately for us we hadn’t driven this way last
TGIC
Thank God it's closed. Not much was happening on a Sunday morning in Berchtesgaden. Although this and many other craftsmen's shops were closed, we did find one that was open and then proceeded to spend half our morning shopping inside. night.
As we headed back toward Salzburg I saw a road sign indicating that Hallein was off to the right. I had heard of this town but never visited. I recalled seeing a beautiful photo showing a little town along a large still body of water. The red tiled roofs and spires of the town were reflected in the placid water of the lake while snow-capped mountains rose in the background. This sounded like a great photo op. We headed past a huge modern brewery for a beer I never heard of before or since, then entered a rather large town. We kept driving ahead even when the road turned into a cobblestoned pedestrian-only zone. Nothing at all was open downtown nor were any Sunday walkers waltzing around. We just kept driving waiting to stumble out upon that gorgeous scene.
Next thing we knew we were across a bridge over a narrow stream and out of Hallein. We knew this when we saw the big blue sign with “Hallein” and a pictogram of a town on it crossed out with a red “x”. Since the town looked totally dead and Nuvi’s zoomed out map didn’t indicate any nearby
The Zecccccchmeister
The place we spent so much time shopping in was "Holzschnitzerei Zechmeister". That translates as "The wood-carver who is a master of carousing". lakes we decided to continue driving. We were hoping to spot a place where we might grab a couple Bosnas or some Goulaschsuppe just to tide us over. I later realized that I had mistaken “Hallein” for “Hallstatt”, another little town further SE of Salzburg.
Eventually we were back out in the country. No restaurants or snack bars out there. Out in the middle of nowhere we were stopped by rapidly descending railroad crossing barriers in our path. We sat there for a good 5 minutes before the two car train stopped in the middle of the road to pick-up a passenger. There had to be all of ten people on the entire train. Meanwhile about twenty cars lined-up behind me. Who says the Europeans go everywhere by train?
About this time I decided we should go revisit
Gollinger Wasserfall which lay about 6 miles away according to Nuvi. Gail and I had visited this isolated waterfall back in the 80’s. Back then we traipsed through snow for about a half mile just to see a tall thin waterfall whose waters originated on the German side of the Alps. Even though there would be snow in the parking lot,
The Long Way Down
This is the way down to the lower part of Berchtesgaden. It isn't the road we hiked up (that's at the other end of town) but it does give an idea of the degree of ascent we had to negotiate. the path to the falls was kept clear of snow with wooden planks keeping you out of the wet slippery sections.
When we arrived at the place indicated on my GPS it too looked much different than what we remembered. It didn’t seem nearly as remote as it had in bygone days. I didn’t see big pastures full of cows or isolated farmhouses. Everything seemed much more built-up. There was a rather large, swanky hotel near the old parking lot. We pulled into the lot to take a closer look at the beautifully decorated building and to also get our bearings. When I saw the name of the place on the roofline I realized that at one point I had booked this very place for this very trip. But because we kept changing our schedule and order of doing things I was unable to change our reservations for this place. It was booked solid for the new dates I requested. No doubt due to the long weekend and the promise of so many skiers.
We decided to head into the center of town. Golling an der Salzach is basically a one street town, but apparently this is prime
Berchtesgaden Train Station
Situated in the lower section of town this railway stop has seen its share of history. Visitor's getting an audience with the Fuhrer would rach Berchtesgaden through here. I assume Neville Chamberlain also came through here when he met Hitler at his Berghof. It was also a very important stop during the early Cold War when nearby Austria was still in Soviet hands. tourist territory; not necessarily at this time of the year however. The main street featured a fair number of inns, hotels and pensions along with a variety of restaurants. We decided to park the van and take a look around. Not much was open. We skipped the pizza parlor that was open, then passed by the ice cream place that was also open for business. Halfway up the street we spotted four or five chalkboard menus out on the curb. We took a look, saw “Goulaschsuppe” and the names of various “Wursts” so we walked into the Gasthof Schwarzes Rossl.
The place was deserted but after standing around like idiots for a minute or two someone came in and directed us to a table. It was warm and cozy inside with a great view through a large picture window out on to the street. After ordering the usual round of drinks, namely four Kaiser beers, a Coke for Cassie and tea for Grandma, she then surprised us all by ordering an ice cream sundae. She must’ve been feeling very warm and cozy inside to make such a daring selection. The rest of us got Goulaschsuppe or Wurst. I made
The Watzmanns
It's hard to tell with a snowstorm swirling over them, but these mountains are the primary landmarks of this corner of Germany. The tallest peak is the third highest in Germany. The locals have many legends about these mountains and each peak has a name. The entire range is considered the Watzmann Family with a Daddt peak, a Mommy peak, and the 5 little Kiddie peaks. sure to get some of those fantastic French fries that the German-speaking countries do so well. When my food came my fries were exactly what I was expecting - golden brown crispy sticks of deliciousness. This had been an excellent little detour. Our little snack break cost us about $45.
When we finished and used the toilets once again, we proceeded up the street. There was nothing especially noteworthy up there, but the old buildings and decorations proved interesting. A few more people had followed our lead and stopped in town. We spotted a couple other open restaurants with mid afternoon snackers warming themselves inside. Golling purported to have a castle, but it looked to be an even lesser castle than Ton Veldman’s.
When we saw virtually every building along the main drag we returned to the van. We continued South. Since the weather wasn’t too bad and we were enjoying ourselves just driving around, I thought we’d buzz by Werfen.
When you’re talking about castles, Werfen is what comes to my mind. It sits high above the river valley that passes around it while it looms over the town built next to it. The site is
One of My Favorite Street Scenes
When we reached the end of the main street we reversed direction and returned to the pedestrian only zone. To the very left of the photo is that fantastic toy store where we bought so many Playmobil, Brio and Lego toys for the kids when they were young. The blue building across the alley is the souvenir shop where we bought our beer glasses and more postcards. That important looking round turret building is the entrance to the underground garage. virtually inaccessible. It is the castle that Eastwood and Burton sneak into in “Where Eagles Dare”. In that World War II movie access to the castle is only via cable car. When we stopped to take pictures of the castle we didn’t see any cables leading up to it, but we also didn’t detect a road up there either. There has to be someway to get up there.
Tyler was surprisingly uninterested in Werfen. Since nobody else is a war movie fan I decided to continue driving South. The roads were still almost totally devoid of traffic. We were able to go at our own pace and slow down to look at whatever interested us with no fear of some crazy Austrian rear-ending us.
The next major town we came upon was
Bischofshofen . The name sounded familiar to me. As we drove through this the biggest of the places we’d been today I kept trying to remember why I had heard of it. The town itself was quite charming. It looked to be a nice place to spend a night. There were plenty of restaurants, bars and hotels along with numerous clothing and craft shops. It was hard
Winter Fruit
At the time I thought this made an interesting picture. It was a bit unusual seeing red berries on this bush in the middle of Winter. I couldn't convince Gail to taste one. to tell whether the commercial center of town would be alive on a Winter weekday or not. Late on a Sunday afternoon there was nothing going on. We drove through town then headed down a road where scores of cars had pulled-off to park on the side of the road. As we continued up the road we could make out two huge ski jumps in the distance. Now I remembered why I had heard of Bischofhofen - this had been the site of numerous ski jump championships on the old Wide World of Sports. And today an event seemed to be just ending. We pulled into a parking lot just below the jumps and took a few pictures.
We soon continued South along the same B311 highway which meandering alongside the Salzach River. Soon the road and river narrowed as the mountains grew in size. At one point just outside St. Johann im Pongau we had to drive through an extremely long tunnel through one of these mountains. Eventually we passed the exit road to Bad Hofgastein. Had we more time I would’ve enjoyed returning to this ritzy spa town. That two lane road is the entrance and exit
Wall Art in Berchtesgaden
A tribute to the dairy cows of Berchtesgadenland. They have special ceremonies and processions for the cows when they take them up to the alpine pastures in the Spring and again in the Fall when they bring them down for a Winter spent in the barns. to the town. There are no other paved roads out. The only way out is the railroad that heads South into Italy by going through an extremely long tunnel at the end of town. Drivers can pay to have their cars transported into Italy on special railcars.
We kept on the B311hoping to see additional surprises along the way. By now more and more cars with ski racks on their roofs were on the road. People were starting to head out from the ski slopes in the area. As it was getting increasingly dark due to the sun being blocked by the towering Alps, we soon agreed it was time to turn around and start heading back.
The weather was still holding up with only an occasional flurry or two but as the sun set I began having trouble seeing the lines on the narrow road. It didn’t help that I was constantly being tailgated by aggressive Austrians who knew these roads much better than I did. There was nowhere to pull off to let the obnoxious jerks get by, so they constantly rode on my butt then zoomed by at the first slightly less dangerous opportunity they
Distinguished Visitors
No. this wasn't our van although with all the beer and food we were consuming we'd probably get down the hill much faster than them. got. Then that maniac was quickly replaced by another one sniffing my rearend.
After returning through Bischofshofen I exited the B311 and found the entrance to the Autobahn. This highway is a direct shot straight-up to Salzburg. What had taken us hours to drive on the winding two lane local highway we now covered in less than 45 minutes. Halfway up this highway we remembered that we hadn’t purchased the special highway vignette drivers are required to display when using the Autobahns. We pulled into a rest stop and bought one even though we had been using the super highways for two days without a problem. But better safe than sorry and I knew that we would be doing a good deal of Autobahn driving tomorrow on our way to Salzburg,
When we reached the Salzburg area we exited and drove back to the same part of town where we had parked the previous day. I intended to have dinner at the Sternbrau no matter what. When drew near the Mirabell Palace Nuvi decided to act stupid again. The directions came fast and furious often contradicting themselves. We kept ending up on one way streets that took us
Door to Door Train Service
It was rather odd to see this two car train stop in the middle of the highway to pick up a single passenger. He had plenty of room to stretch out on this train since there were less than a half dozen others aboard. further from the part of town we wanted to get to. Somehow we got things straightened-out and parked on the same street we had been on the night before.
It was much colder tonight so we moved quickly past the dark deserted Mirabell Palace grounds. There was almost no one about on this side of the river. Once again it was bitterly cold crossing the Salzach by way of the pedestrian bridge, but now our goal was in sight. Over on this side of the Salzach there were many more people walking about with most of them standing around waiting for buses.
Just before going into the Sternbrau Gail and I stopped at the little over-priced souvenir stand next door where I paid a few Euros for a medium-sized cowbell for our expanding collection. When we walked into the
Sternbrau we were almost overwhelmed by the wall of cigarette smoke. Inside the huge restaurant there are eight different places to eat, each differing in its level of formality and price. Our manager friend was nowhere to be found but the maitre d’ on duty quickly found us a table. She must’ve sized us up and figured what we
An Oft-Photographed Sight
On our search for the Gollinger Wasserfall we passed this little chapel sitting high on a giant rock. Gail and I knew we were looking in the right spot when we came across this. could afford. Unfortunately we weren’t in the non-smoking section. As the evening went on I began to understand that the Stuberl we were in, Treff 23, was set aside for tourists without reservations.
Despite the smoke and noise we had a very enjoyable dinner. Grandma had Goulaschsuppe and a giant pretzel. I had a cheesy Spaetzle. For dessert we ordered the local dessert specialty,
Salzburger Nockerl . Things aren’t as cheap in Europe as they once were but this dinner for six of us which included two rounds of drinks cost less than $120.00. Twenty bucks per person is pretty reasonable I suppose. And considering the fact that we made dinner last close to three hours due of the entertainment provided by the local kid at the next table, I suppose you can say it was a bargain.
Once we settled the bill we spent very little time walking around. We headed back to the van quickly in order to escape the cold night air. After a full day of driving with my still sore heel I was exhausted. When we returned to the Bauerngirgl the rest of the group stayed-up and watched TV, while I went straight to bed.
Where We Were Hoping to Stay
I had booked the Torrenerhof for the nights of 27 and 28 December but when we had to move our dates back a few days there were no rooms available. It looks like a very nice place but breakfast cost extra. Tomorrow was going to be another long day of driving. And I was pretty certain I’d be the only one awake the whole trip.
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