32. Kempten
3月7日, ドイツ ⋅ ☁️ 6 °CToday we had a very scenic yet long drive to Kempten, it was quite rainy so we decided to plough on. We drove alongside the huge Lake Constance and enjoyed seeing all the German vineyards along theもっと詳しく
Today we had a very scenic yet long drive to Kempten, it was quite rainy so we decided to plough on. We drove alongside the huge Lake Constance and enjoyed seeing all the German vineyards along the way.
We realised that we had over shot where we meant to stay by about an hour.. How? Neither of us know, but we weren't miles away from where we could link into the German alpine route!
Once we arrived Grace had a sleep as she wasn't feeling 100% and James took a walk into town to have an explore. This is the biggest city in Bavaria and was super scenic. James and Maddy did a big loop of the city before we settled down for the evening and cooked a lovely gyros dinner. Another good day!もっと詳しく
Today was the day we have both been so hyped for! Waking up to the best weather we have seen so far was a massive bonus. We headed off to the start of the Alpine Route. Enroute we stopped to do groceries and James gave the van a quick clean to get the salt off from the roads.
We then headed south, edging around the Austrian border and through the mountains. We had a really cool mountain pass called Oberjoch, this has 108 turns within 4km and rises us upto 1230 mtrs! As you can imagine in a 3.5 tonne vehicle it wasn't ideal but we got up without anything coming out of the cupboards, clearly James' driving was very smooth 😂.
Once at the top we stopped and enjoyed some snow and watching the skiiers, we then drove onto our next stop. When we were halfway there,we stopped and decided to go on a good mountain walk to embrace the gorgeous weather. We found a great park up close to the walk and headed off, it was a moderate (in alp standards) walk and still had a 450 mtr climb taking us up to the top. We got into deep snow and edged around the mountain next to a castle at the top. It was so cool to go and walk in the crisp snow with the sun shining.
After a long and slippery walk back down, we headed to our campsite. We spent the evening washing clothes and sorting out the van. What a great day. Another beautiful day tomorrow, so we are heading to Neuschwanstein castle, which is the most impressive castle in the world, it features in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and inspired Walt Disney when designing the Disney castle.
We went to the local pub called 'Wirthaus Wiesele' for a lovely German dinner and beer. We had a pork loin which was delicious.もっと詳しく
Instead of driving to the car park closest to the castle and paying a hefty parking fee , we decided to park a couple of miles away and cycle to the start of the footpath up to the famous castle . James towed Maddy in her little dog trailer , which is always comical and good fun - James did very well towing Maddy up the hills , considering she is 23 kg !
The walk up to the castle was very steep , but didn't take nearly as long as what we thought it would . Once at the entrance of the beautiful castle , we discovered that it was only 18 euros each to complete an audio guide of the castle . We were under the impression that it was going to be 50 euros each when researching the night before ! We were absolutely gutted we didn't know this sooner as we couldn't enter the castle with Maddy.
None the less , we enjoyed walking around the grounds of the majestic castle and stopped off for a picnic before walking back down .
After all that walking and cycling , we made the decision to drive back to the campsite we had stayed at the previous night so we could shower and chill .
We spent the evening planning our next moves and decided that we were going to visit the romantic old town of Füssen before going back to Neuschwanstein castle to complete the tour . We had a chicken and veg sir fry in preparation for another active day tomorrow !もっと詳しく
After stocking up on water , we drove for about 20 mins to the medieval town of Füssen. The town is famous for manufacturing violins and boasts impressive gothic architecture. We really enjoyed walking around the cobbled streets , the properties were beautiful and full of character . There was an impressive castle in the middle of the town called "Hohes Schloss" castle.
Before leaving the pretty little town, we walked up to the "Lechfall" , an impressive man made waterfall. The water was crystal clear and appeared very welcoming- bit too cold for a dip, unfortunately.
Once back at the van , we had a quick lunch before making tracks back to the car park for the castle . We cycled to the ticket office and discovered we only had 30 mins to walk the steep hill to the castle . We absolutely paced it up the hill and made it up to the castle in 7.5 minutes - it was quite a workout!
Our efforts certainly weren't wasted, the inside of the 155 year old castle was just breathtaking. Words honestly can't describe how beautiful it was . King Ludwig certainly had fantastic taste when designing the castle . The walls were dripping with all shades of blue, green and gold , without looking gaudy . The chandeliers were just stunning , with colourful gems glistening in the light .
We both are so pleased that we have managed to visit the fairytale castle featured in our favourite childhood film.
After all that excitement , we walked to the nearby "Maria bridge" to gain a better view of the outside of the castle . The bridge wasn't very pleasant to walk over , the wooden floor moved with every step and poor James got a bit wobbly when looking at the waterfall below.
After all that excitement, we drove to a lovely campsite in Rottenbuch . The owner was super cool and friendly. We parked up next to a pen of chickens and rabbits, how cute !
James did the cooking tonight whilst I had a lovely chat with mum. We enjoyed a beer and a couple of gins throughout the evening.もっと詳しく
Today we enjoyed the morning at the campsite before carrying on down the Alpine road. We did all the services on the van before heading towards Bad Tölz, the road was super scenic and we passed some big lakes and Germany's highest mountain, called Zugspitze, which is just under 3000 mtrs high. En route we did a big food shop to stock us up for the next few days. We went over a lovely mountain pass again to nearly 1000mtrs which is screenshotted below, Gracie drove this one as I drove the last one and it all was successful, despite being so windy, Maddy joined us in the cab for this one 😂
When we arrived at Bad Tölz, we decided to head to Munich as we wanted to visit the city as we haven't been to a big German city yet. There is also a concentration camp called Dachau which we want to visit. We headed to a park up just outside Munich, which is ideal as we can jump straight onto the train to Munich and then visit the camp the following day.
It is a slightly dodgy car park so not too sure what to do with Maddy when we head to Munich, but still nice to finally find a cheap park up as south Bavaria has been very expensive!
After updating penguins we are watching a film called One Life and then early night for big day tomorrow in Munich.もっと詳しく
JGM TRAVELS 2023 Thanks Grangee we have completely fell in love with south Germany! We are going to follow the Alps along to Vienna as we both have always wanted to visit here. If you have any recommendations that would be great as we are abit unfamiliar with Austria! 😂😂 We will be ready, doe a deer, a female deer 🎶🎼
Today we woke up and took Maddy on a good walk before heading into Munich. There are many rail and airport strikes in Germany so we didn't experience the usual efficient service. We both feel quite worried about leaving the van, especially Maddy being left inside. This is the roughest area we have left the van for the day.
After landing in Marienplatz we were greeted with the amazing capital of Bavaria, it lived up to the rest of the stunning towns we have visited. We then took a long scenic walk around the old city and visited the Residenz Munich which has been home to many royal bavarian kings and Queens. Strolling through the city every part of Munich was stunning, we saw so many super cars, posh hotels and designer stores down the Maxmillianstrrate. To have our lunch we stopped at a man made wave called Eisbachwelle in the river. There were many surfers there catching the wave, it looked very technical! This was super cool and unusual for a normal city experience.
After stopping for a coffee we decided to rent E scooters and head for a trip around the English Garden, the world's biggest inner city park! This was really fun zipping here there and everywhere.
After all the fun we decided to carry on our WW2 tour as Munich is where Hitler first came to power. We visited the old town Hall which was used by Hitler at parts before the war broke out. Then we headed to Fhurerbau, next to Kongisplatz, which was Hitlers HQ during the early stages of the war and where he had his private study. Despite now being used by the university of Munich, it is one of the only remaining buildings purposefully built for the Nazis in 1934. We also took a look around Konigsplatz and looked at the old war photos, where huge swarms of Nazis stood in the ginormous square... It felt very surreal being here, I think mainly due to it being only 80/90 years ago.
The next stop was Hofbräuhaus, a very old and famous traditional Munich pub. We stopped here not just for the beer but because this was where the Nazi Party was formulated, it is where Hitler made his first speeches to his following party and where he declared Anti Semitisum against the Jews. It was slightly daunting having a beer where they all once stood. Upstairs was the main room which had a anniversary party every year they were in power, unfortunately this was closed but we still had a good feel for the place. We enjoyed a lovely beer and it went straight to our heads after walking 10 miles 🍻. When I paid, the waiter tried asking me for a 5 euro tip, despite being only a 10 euro bill.. cheeky bugger, obviously I declined and he got a euro. After a nice walk back we got a very busy train back to the van, it's still there! We treated ourselves to a nice takeaway after a busy day on our feet.もっと詳しく
Today we both woke up aching a little from all the walking yesterday, so we decided to drive instead of bike to Dachau concentration Camp.
We headed into the camp and firstly stopped at the prison, it was very detailed when explaining the crimes which the Nazi's made against these innocent people. If you made it into camp prison, you were in for a very rough time. Towards the end of the war they even filled the cells with partions so they couldn't lie nor sit down and they would keep prisoners in here for days at a time.
We then headed into the main building of the camp , here it explained about how the camp was ran. Despite being only a small camp, they had 188,000 inmates. The living conditions were awful and disease spread quickly. It was already running by 1933 and ran up to being liberated by the US army.
We visited the memorial and the mass grave outside the front of the building, still felt sickening that this ever happened, was a really emotional day reading the individual stories. Afterwards we headed into the only block left which the inmates shared. The last stop was the worse bit, it was a visit to a Gas chamber and crematorium. This was really sad and felt quite unnerving to visit. The Nazi's had destroyed all records before the camp was liberated and have declined any evidence of the gas chambers really being used, but this has always been testified by the survivors. It is estimated that 44,000 people died whilst the camp was running.
Afterwards we started to head towards Bad Tolz, the van went into intermittent limp mode to add to the emotions, so we stopped and seeked advice with a garage, who managed to clear the fault and send us on our way. They did this for free despite being offered some money, was very kind of them.
We gave the van a run and it seemed to run fine so we carried on our journey, after stopping for the van services we headed to a free park up by a sports complex. We had a nice evening in the end watching "The Gentleman" on Netflix, definitely worth a watch.もっと詳しく
Today we had to wait until 2.00pm to use the showers at the swimming pool, so we had a lazy morning deciding on whether to take the van in to a local Citreon garage.. After seeking lots of advice (thanks, Leigh), we decided to leave it as the van is running fine now, with no fault codes showing. We therefore carried on driving the Alpine route after having our shower. The drive was very fun, we weaved in and out of Austria which was cool. We also passed some lovely lakes & towns whilst driving some awesome mountain roads.
We did a big mountain pass and went over 1200mtrs again, mad that this is close to height of Ben Nevis. Enroute we stopped at a very scenic waterfall and walked down to a viewpoint to view it looking up. This was really nice but sketchy taking Maddy as she throws herself down the steps...
Afterwards we headed along a small mountain road to our next parkup, probably the most scenic one yet, with huge mountains the one direction, surrounded by the foothills around us and a big fishing lake. We predict only 1 day left on our Alpine route- we recommend this as its been super scenic and at times has put the swiss alps to shame!もっと詳しく