Winkl

I won't finish the quote from Mel Brooks' "To Be or Not to Be", because I want to return to Germany in the future.

If you don't know the line referred to in the title, you're probably better off.

Today is the big day, and we're headed into Germany. Again, compulsive over planner than I am, I knew exactly what we were doing. I watched videos of what bus to take on the subject, "how to get to Berchtesgaden from Salzburg", stalked the Deutsche Bahn site, the RVO (Bavarian regional bus/train company) site, looked at it on Google maps, even found a bus stop. We were ready, maybe planning to stop at the Grassl distillery on the way. Who knew? The possibilities were endless.

We woke up to a rainy day. Got breakfast at a nearby cafe, but took it back to the hotel. Packed up, looked outside. Still raining. Worse. Raining really hard. Buckets, or as the Germans might say, "Es regnet in Strömen"- it's raining in streams. I have to admit-- I looked that one up.

My suggestion, "The bus stops right by the prison thing around the corner on the way out of town. Let's get it there."
Herr Hai, "No, it might be crowded and we have bags. We should walk to the train station and get it."
Me, "But it's raining really hard."
Him, "Are you a witch?"

Fine, so we walk. It's a long walk. I'm looking at the phone, the time, the google maps. We're passing Mirabell Palace again. IT'S POURING, raining so hard you can barely see the end of the block. Not to mention, we're never going to make it to the bus stop which is actually a block plus away from the train station. Next bus isn't for more than an hour. The previous night, we found a stop right there. I saw it. I showed it to him. We decide we'd pick up the bus there. But lo and behold-- we can't find the bus stop. It's gone. POOF.

That sets off a mad dash, comparing the map of where the bus goes, to google, to where we are, and finally, as seconds are ticking, bus time is coming, I say, "Screw it, we're going to wait in front of the palace and jump the bus as it approaches."

And that actually works. The bus is virtually empty, so the walk through the pouring rain was pointless. Then, I tell the driver exactly what ticket we want (thanks to the smart folks on the Trip Advisor Germany forum) and the RVO website. "No." That's what he says, and proceeds to sell me another ticket that I don't want. Okay then. Not off to a good start.

But we're on the bus. We're driving through the countryside. We enter Germany... cue national anthem, all three verses. Of course, when I was a kid, I thought the opening words of forbidden verse one were actually, "Deutschland über goblins", so I was really disappointed to learn later there's nothing about actual goblins in the entire song. That aside, we made it. I was already wound up, unhappy that all my carefully laid plans had crashed and burned. It was still pouring, so no stop at the distillery to try Gebirgsenzian. We went right into Berchtesgaden. Our first view of the mountains weren't quite what I had been hoping.

So next, we had to take another bus out to Ramsau, the town where our pension was. We had chosen to stay out there (stupidly, with no car) because we wanted to stay "in the country" on a farm with a nice view. People assured us "you can do it by bus easy, no problem." Problem: the buses stop running around six in the evening, and it's not exactly walkable to get back out there from town. Anyway... We get to the village, and we need to take another bus. By this time (and it's only maybe ten or eleven in the morning) my brain is fried. I can't figure out what side of the street to get the bus on. Herr Hai isn't much help, even though he's the one who passed his Land Nav course in the navy, then again in the navy-army. Apparently that doesn't count for busses.

So we walk. We had looked this all up beforehand. There's a trail from the village up to the farm. Rather than wait for the bus, which we had just missed in both directions somehow, we decided to in Herr Hai's words to, "hoof it."

We made it. The woman who runs the place let us drop off our bags and gave us our guest cards even though we were early. This is something I liked about a lot of these rural/ tourist areas. You pay a tourist tax, you get a guest card. With most of them, you get to ride the busses for free, with a few exceptions. You get into some museums and attractions for free or at a reduced rate. It actually worked out for us on this trip, and saved us some money. Room is nice and homey, balcony with a view, but of course it's pouring again.

We decided to brave the rain, because now we're almost fully Germanized and I learned from the internet, "Es gibt kein schlechtes Wetter, nur schlechte Kleidung", there is no bad weather, just bad clothing. The plan, return to Berchtesgaden. We'll get something to eat, look around, find the things we want to find in town (something involving monkeys, so stay tuned), maybe take the bus all the way back out to Grassl...
The rain seemed to be letting up, so maybe luck was on our side.Read more