Motor bike tour along the "German Alps Road"

[ingobohn_imp]

PREFACE
=======
Last Sunday, a colleague and I startet a 5-day-tour along the so called "German Alps Road". This road goes in E/W direction along the German side of the Alps from the Lake of Constance to Berchtesgaden (close to the Austrian border).
It is hard for me to describe the 5 days in detail as English is not my mother language and writing a detailed report in English would just cost too much effort for my clumsy fingers.

So here is the compressed version with some pics.
DAY 1
====
We started on last Sunday morning 9 am at Mannheim and headed to Berchtesgaden (as we planned to ride the tour from East to West). The weather was fine but riding on the German Autobahn for approx 5 hours with 140-150 km/h speed is not so comfortable. I packed all my belongings in a simple rubber role (from the manufacturer Ortlieb) which was totally waterproof (unfortunately, we tested this during our ride). When we arrived at our first hotel ("Götschenalm" in Bischofswiesen close to Berchtesgaden),

we unmounted all the baggage and immediately started to ride along the "Roßfeldpanoramastraße". Nice curvy road and sometimes great panoramic view.

After riding the road 3 times (you have to pay 4 EUR toll fee), we headed for lake "Königssee"

before we went back to our hotel. By the way: in Bavaria all the cattles have "free passway" which means they are allowed to cross roads wherever they want. So you have to take care of them and especially their slippery digestion remnants on the roads.

[HikerToo_imp]

That's living the dream, does not get much better than that!

[ingobohn_imp]

DAY 2
====
The next day we recognized that it rained over night and brought fresh new snow on top of the mountains, so it was clear that some of the originally planned detours or spontaneous rides into higher mountain regions have to be cancelled.
Instead, we took the "Scharitzkehlstraße" which lead us on tiny little single trails through the Alp region passing some lonely farms.

From Berchtesgaden we headed to Inzell, Ruhpolding and Reit im Winkl and finally crossed the Austrian border. We took a rest in a little café inside a small valley between the "Wilder Kaiser" and "Zahmer Kaiser".

Unfortunately, it started to rain very heavily when we rode from there to the lakes "Schliersee" and "Tegernsee". Some roads were even flooded with water and when we passed them we felt like riding a boat not a bike. But eveything went well. After 2 hours the rain stopped.
At that moment we traveresed a gorgeous nature reserve along the river "Isar". Although I have never been there, we both felt like being in Canada with broad rivers and mountains in the back.

At the end of the day we slept in a small private hotel in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Unfortunately it was still foggy and cloudy so we were not able to see the biggest German mountain "Zugspitze" from Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
DAY 3
====
Weather was still not fine and it was said that it will rain every now and then the whole day, so we decided not to ride too much kilometers this day but do a "culture day" instead. So first we went to "Oberammergau" which is well known for their Christian Passion Play which is performed every 10 years and is based on a vow from 1634 to God to spare them from a bubonic plague. The city (and the whole region) is also well known for the painted house walls (so called "Lüftlmalereien").

We did a brief stop at "Kloster Ettal" (monastry)

and headed to "Schloß Linderhof" (a little castle of Bavarian king Ludwig).

We had lunch close to the "Wieskirche" (roccoco church)

and wanted to visit the "Schloß Neuschwanstein" (the model for Walt Disney's Cinderella castle).

Unfortunately, it started to rain again and sight was poor, so we decided to stop our tour for that day in the early afternoon and took a nice landside hotel close to a lake. To warm us up we went to the hotel sauna.
DAY 4
====
After a long and delicious breakfast, we rode through the "Namloser Tal"

and the "Tannheimer Tal"

(2 valleys) in Austria (as our hotel was located quite close to the border) and went then back to the German side again.
Thanks to the European Union and the "Schengen agreement" we neither had to take out our passport when we crossed the borders nor were subjected to any border custom check.
We passed Bad Hindelang and had the last tiny zickzack road under our feet when we rode to Balderschwang. And faster as planned we arrived ath the end of the "German Alps Road" at the city of Lindau at the lake of constance.

As said earlier, we had to cancel some of our planned little detours to the uper Alp regions due to the weather so we arrived 1 day earlier in Lindau.
What to do now? First we thought about crossing Switzerland or France on our way back home but that would have been a longer than 1 day detour. So we decided to surprise my parents who live in the Southern part of the Black Forest and stay for one night there.
DAY 5
====
The next morning we started very relaxed and drove slowly through the Black Forest to the North and arrived at early afternoon in Mannheim.

Since we arrived there the weather was much better and temperature are in mid 20s. At one point in Austria when crossed a mountain pass it was 8 degrees celsius only.
...and here is the GPX file of our trip (with all planned and not done detours).

[url=attachment.php?aid=1557]Alpenstraße gesamt 1-10.zip (Size: 2.49 KB / Downloads: 3)

[CB4ME_imp]

Wow! That would be the trip of a life time for lots of us.

Who wants to start a business renting CB1100's in Germany?

[the Ferret]

I do loves me some mountains... awesome pics and report

"and wanted to visit the "Schloß Neuschwanstein" "

Hey I recognize that place



Here's a report I did on a tour we did over there. You may recognize the names of some of the places we went, you may or may not be able to see some or all of the pictures. I'm not sure

[url=http://rideohio.org/showthread.php?t=10999&highlight=Edelweiss]http://rideohio.org/showthread.php?t=10999&highlight=Edelweiss

and yes it was the trip of a lifetime for us...but if Canada and Europe changed places, I'd go there all the time.

[ingobohn_imp]

Hey Ferret, great shot! You must be at nearly the same place where I have taken the picture of Neuschwanstein. On the road leading to that castle there is a little chapel aside where we stopped and took out our cameras. It looks like you are also located there at the chapel, right?

Thanks for your report - I will read it after I had dinner with my wife now.

[redbirds_imp]

Magnificent scenery and pics. Thanks for the excellent post.

[Rocky_imp]

Beautiful pictures

[the Ferret]

Hey Ferret, great shot! You must be at nearly the same place where I have taken the picture of Neuschwanstein. On the road leading to that castle there is a little chapel aside where we stopped and took out our cameras. It looks like you are also located there at the chapel, right?

Thanks for your report - I will read it after I had dinner with my wife now.

Yep we were at that little chapel... good eye. We also went to Ludwig's Castle. The rear grounds were just amazing. We didn't tour either castle however, just walked around the outside at Ludwigs and rode thru the parking lot at the Neuschwanstein. There was a huge crowd there.

[ingobohn_imp]

Just some more pics...
more pics
and more
even more