Garmisch Sunset

The final view looking out our hotel room towards the setting sun. An excellent trip, despite just being a week long. It was worth the jetlag, cool weather, and being away from the families to relive some very fond memories of one of the most beautiful places on earth. Auf Wiedersehen!

Linderhof Valley Before Sunset

The sun started going down on our last day in Germany. This is a view looking down the valley towards the Linderhof...about 5 miles away. The mountains in the distance are in Austria.

Two more Neusch. views

The first view from the bottom of the walk, the second from the car on the drive back through the town of Schwangau.

More Snowy Walks

It's about a 30 minute hike up the hill from the car parking area, unless you want to take a horse-drawn carriage. Then it's a 30-minute ride.

Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein

On our way into the castle area we could see first Hohenschwangau, and a few minutes later Neuschwanstein.

Plansee

Continuing on past Linderhof via the Plansee (Plan Lake) on the way to two other Ludwigschlosser....

Schloss Linderhof

Southern Bavaria's main tourist sights include the castles of King Ludwig. This is one of the smaller ones called Linderhof. It's beautiful in winter, but we've been here in the summer when the grounds were all decked out.

Oberammergau and Kofel

Two views of the Kofel, the pointed mountain overlooking the town of Oberammergau. O'gau is where they have the world famous Passion Play every 10 years. We also visited O'gau a number of times, as Dad had a few weeks he had to spend at the NATO school in town. Dad, Brian, and I climbed this mountain back in 1984. Major accomplishment. I'm sure we had significant amounts of Schnitzel, Pommes, and Sinalco Cola afterwards.

Ettal

Going north out of Garmisch, we head towards Oberammergau. In between is the small town of Ettal, with it's famous monastary.

Bill's BMW

OK, not really mine, but a momentary coveting. We took our little Opel Corsa rental car up to about 130-140 km/hour, which translates to about 80 mph. These BMW's were passing us at what seemed twice that speed. Probably not, but they were doing at least 100.

Partenkirchen

Brian overlooking the main street in old town Partenkirchen. Garmisch-Partenkirchen is actually two towns that have grown into one.

Rathaus

A typical Bavarian building. Rathaus means town hall. This one not as old as some.

Garmisch Morning

Vol 5/5. When we lived in Germany in the 80s, we made several trips to Garmisch at several times of the year. This was the last stop on our trip, and we enjoyed walking around the town, looking for old landmarks, and enjoying the scenery.

Three Views of the Zugstpitze

The Zugspitze is Germany's highest mountain peak. This was our view of it as we approached from the east, near Reutte, Austria.

Swiss Border

After leaving Hirzel, we headed east towards Garmisch, which as it happens took us through not only Austria, but Liechtenstein as well. This was the border crossing. Most of Europe has open borders within the EU, but of course Switzerland is not part of that, so they have a little more stringent border crossings.

"Downtown" Hirzel

A very small town, this was where the main number of buildings was clustered, including the house of Johanna Spyri, the lady who wrote the story "Heidi", Hirzel's claim to fame.

Hirzel Kirche

Brian in front of the Hirzel church. We looked around for some dates to see if there was anything standing that was there back in the 1600's, when our ancestors would have been there. We never came to any concrete conclusions, but we did find some things dated from the 1700s. Can't remember when the family left.

Hirzel

Had to get the sign indicating Hirzel. A few hundred meters up the road was the Gemeinde, or community center. We stopped in and told them our family was Hartsell, originally from Hirzel. We showed them our ID cards and they were fascinated that we had come all that distance to see the homestead. They were extremely helpful and gave us pamphlets, books, a nice history book of Hirzel, shot glasses, stickers.....all sorts of things and all for free. Very nice.

Swiss Autobahn

A great day to drive, and despite all the snow, all the roads were clear and we were able to make good time. We left Lauterbrunnen around lunchtime and headed towards our family hometown of Hirzel, about 2 hours away near Zurich.

Sunny Lauterbrunnen Valley

Volume 4/5: After the trip back down to Lauterbrunnen from the top of the Schilthorn, we took one last walk around town, now that we had a sunny day. Same view of the church looking into the valley.

Bill und Gasthaus

This is what I think of when I think Switzerland. A cozy little gasthaus overlooking some serious snowcovered peaks, and clear skies. This was the perfect Alpine day. Soon followed up by a fairly lame lunch....we decided to do lunch in the car as we drove, so we stopped at the local grocery store and picked up some bread and cheese. We got a sampler platter of cheese, but it was all the really pungent kind....no good Emmantaler or Gruyere. So, we did bread and looked forward to an excellent meal later than evening in Garmisch. Which we got.

Jungfrau from the Train

Had some great views of the Jungfrau from the 15 minute train ride from Murren back to Grutschalp. Even better is the video footage we got along this stretch.

Brian in Murren

Murren was a beautiful town with lots of hotels, gasthauses, skiers, etc. Brian with the Eiger in the background. Classic shot.

Skiers Unloading

We had to wait for all these skiers going UP before we could get on the gondola to go DOWN.

Murren

Finally we had to head down from the Schilthorn, as we had a fairly long drive ahead of us over to Garmisch, Germany. We rode the gondola (they're usually empty coming down) through Birg and into Murren. This is a view of Murren, built on the edge of the cliff overlooking the Lauterbrunnen Valley.

Gondola

A good view of the Schilthornbahn arriving from Birg. These were always the best lifts to take while you were skiing. Although you didn't sit, it was often nice to be protected from the wind and cold, at least for a few minutes.

More E M J

Brian and Bill with E M J again.

Schilthorn

If you look closely you can see our reflection in the window. This was built in the late 1960's and was made famous in the James Bond movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." from 1969.

Endless Alps

Of course at almost 10,000 feet we could see for miles in all directions. Many of these dioramas were frozen over so we had no idea what we were looking at much of the time. This was facing somewhat west towards French Alps in the distance.

Jungfrau

A closeup of the Jungfrau with some serious blowing snow.

Birg

Birg is the 2/3 way point between Murren and the Schilthorn on the gondola line. How anyone built these places is beyond me. Quality Swiss engineering.

Bill with E, M, J

Me with the same view.

Brian with Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau

It was COLD and WINDY up at the Schilthorn. Elevation I believe is around 9800 feet. Obviously, though, the views and clear skies made enduring the cold and wind worthwhile. The three main mountains you see in the center and right are (from l to r) the Eiger, the Monch, and the Jungfrau. The monk is protecting the young lady from the ogre, literal translation.

Early Morning Mountains

We were hoping for some clearer weather the next day, and we couldn't have gotten a more perfect day. Not a cloud in the sky. We got up early to take the lifts up to the Schilthorn....first a lift from Lauterbrunnen to Grutschalp (no pics cause it was still fairly lowlight). Then a train from Grutschalp to the resort town of Murren, where we started getting more light. Then another lift from the Murren station up to Schilthorn via Birg. This was the first good view we got as we left the Murren station on the gondola lift. Amazing.

Wengen at Dusk

VOL 3/5: We hiked up a few hundred yards up above Wengen to see if we could get a better view, but it started getting dark quickly, as it does in the Alps. Some great views of Wengen, would have been better if I had brought my tripod.

Wengen Kirche at Sunset

Europe has beautiful churches, and this was a great shot of the one in Wengen with just a bit of clearing as the sun went down. This is looking roughly west, obviously, and it was a sign of better weather to come tomorrow.

Brian the Hut

We didn't ever figure out what this little hut was for, but it's a good shot of Brian. Very Swiss, no? Perhaps it's a large doghouse for the St. Bernards.

Luftseilbahn

Me standing in front of a lift I probably took back 25 years ago.

Lauterbrunnen Valley from Wengen

Still clouds, but a good view from up above of the Lauterbrunnen Valley, with the Edelweiss hotel in the foreground.

Alpenrose

One of many very nice hotels in Wengen, this one named the Alpenrose, as Brian is so discreetly pointing out.

Wengen

Later that evening, we took the train for a 15 minute climb up the hillside to the town of Wengen. A larger ski town and some seriously posh resorts up here. This was were I first donned skis. The Sitzmarker Ski Club took a 5 day trip over Christmas of 1984, and I spent 5 crazy days on skis....this was not an easy place to learn to ski, but the atmosphere, views, and snow were well worth the trouble. After 5 days I was doing pretty dang good.

Brian and Lauterbrunnen

After our sumptious meal, we needed a walk. Brian with the town church in the background.