Berchtesgaden, Day 1
For our trip around Bavaria we needed a car. We picked up a van at Sixt and was surprised by the giant surcharge we had to pay for insurance, which was not included in the original cost and was not optional. Although more expensive than a regular car, with six people and our luggage it was not possible to fit in a car. JonPaul was not excited about having to drive; I think he was liking taking the train and relaxing as we travelled cross-country.
The drive on the way to Berchtesgaden was beautiful, with windy roads leading us through small villages with grazing cows and views of tall mountains halfway obscured by fog.
Before going to our B&B which was actually in Piding, about 40 minutes from Berchtesgaden (and half the price), we went to Lake Konigssee. It was sprinkling and cloudy, but we decided to try to go to the lake anyway. We parked on one side of the lake and had to walk across a covered bridge to get to the main area.
We got tickets for the next boat across the lake. The boat ride was pretty, even though the temperature was dropping by the minute. Good thing we were inside while on the boat. We got off at the first stop, which was St. Bartholoma, thinking we would go inside the church to look around a bit. It had started raining in earnest now, so we decided to put the ponchos back on the kids. We also bought another little umbrella so JonPaul and I could stay a little dry (my mom also had a rain jacket which we soon learned was water resistant, not waterproof). The church ended up being a restaurant, so we stood in line to get back on the boat to take it to Salet.
Salet was the last stop on the lake, and it was raining pretty heavily now with a cold wind. We had planned to do a hike to Fischunkelakm Farm, a working farm that sells snacks that are made right there on the farm, and Rothbach waterfall, the tallest waterfall in Germany, but with the weather that was not going to happen. Instead, we did a 20-min walk to Obersee lake, which was pretty but a little miserable because of how cold, windy, and rainy it was. At least the kids were mostly dry, but the adults were soaked. Zoey even found a painted rock, which she kept to hide somewhere else.
When we got back on the boat the windows had fogged up because of the temperature difference from the inside to the outside. So we couldn’t see outside the windows on the ride back to the dock. We did go in a few shops when we got back to the dock, but the place had cleared out pretty quickly when the rain came.
We checked in to our B&B and asked the owner where we could find a laundromat since we had several days of laundry by now (we went several days without doing sink laundry) and wanted to at least dry out our jackets. The owner said there wasn’t a laundromat close, but he would do our laundry at his house. He took our giant bag of laundry and returned it the next morning. I was so surprised at this show of kindness and was very thankful for the clean and nice-smelling laundry. This was Landhaus Grassmann, so if you are ever in Piding I would highly recommend staying here because of the wonderful hospitality of the owner.
