UMGEBUNGSENTDECKER
TRAVEL IMPRESSIONS OF AN ART AND HISTORY LOVER
and my experiences as a teacher in China
Das Berchtesgadener Land
and its surroundings
You can reach Berchtesgaden coming from Bad Reichenhall, driving in Bischofswiesen past the sleeping witch, a mountain whose silhouette is reminiscent of the face of a lying witch, until you arrive in a basin, the Berchtesgadener Land. at Koenigssee,in the extreme southeast of Germany, which is surrounded by high, steep mountains, you actually feel like you are at the end of the country.
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The main attractions in the Berchtesgaden area are the Königssee and the Kehlsteinhaus, there is also a salt mine and Ramsau and a cable car to the Jenner.
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Information for tourists
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In the Berchtesgadener Land you can seldom go with pay card. Some restaurants and shops accept card payments from ten euros, others only from twenty euros and many not at all. The infrastructure of ATMs from various credit institutions is sparse, one is dependent on savings banks and pays a lot for each withdrawal if one is not a savings bank customer. This is all the more surprising given that there are many international tourists coming to this area who pay cashare not used to.
It is just as unusual that bus timetables cannot be viewed online. Anyone who relies on local public transport should photograph timetables for lines that are used frequently at the relevant stops.
Regional trains are also not equipped with sockets or WiFi, although Bavaria likes to present itself as an innovative, technological federal state, which the CSU likes to advertise with the slogan "laptop and lederhosen".
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The Berchtesgadener Land relies on sustainable tourism. There are no hotel complexes, instead many locals offer guest rooms and holiday apartments. Holidays with farmers who still have a number of cows in the barn are not uncommon. It also fits in with sustainable tourism that Berchtesgaden and Garmisch-Partenkirchen rejected the 2022 Winter Olympics with a referendum because they didn't want to sacrifice their regions to the gigantism and greed for profit of the IOC.
Although the Berchtesgadener Land has winter sports areas, it is more of a summer holiday region. Olympic games would have given winter tourism a boost, but apparently the people of Berchtesgaden care less value than preserving the traditional cultural landscape.
Tourist numbers have been declining since the 1990s. Perhaps it's because interest in local travel destinations is generally declining, which is a development that threatened Austria's tourism a few decades ago. These are destinations that were primarily sought out by an older population that was slowly dying away. Younger people nowadays hardly know where the Königssee is located, let alone that the famous views of St. Bartholomä and Ramsau would be known. Although international tourism is increasing, it cannot compensate for the loss of local tourists. Also, for foreign visitors, the Berchtesgadener Land is more of a day trip destination from nearby Salzburg, taking in the Königssee and Kehlsteinhaus.
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The Koenigssee
The Königssee is a completely natural mountain lake where there has been no human intervention since it became part of the Berchtesgaden National Park, which was founded in 1978. The body of water looks like a fjord, where the rugged rock walls fall vertically into the lake. You can't walk along the shore, there are no paths. The only way to see the lake in its entirety without taking a boat is from the Malerwinkel, which is about a 10-minute walk from the boat dock in Schönau. To do this, simply follow the only path behind the boathouses that takes you directly to this viewpoint.
The boat trip should not be missed anyway. It costs 25 euros pp from Schönau to Salet (as of August 2022).
You drive with electric motor boats of the Königssee fleet, which glide almost silently through the water.
The ships run frequently, but are always full, even if you get the first ship at 8:15. We were mistaken in thinking that there would not be many guests at this time, but bhe crowded together in the last place, a few groups of excited hikers talked loudly for minutes about banalities like their provisions and got on your nerves because you actually wanted to enjoy the stillness of the lake in the early morning fog. Fortunately, as soon as one of the two boatmen grabs the microphone and tells data and stories about the lake, it becomes quiet and you only hear the water through which the ship is slowly moving. Stopping in the middle of the lake to hear the famous echo of the Königssee mit one trumpet to demonstrate.
While driving over the boats dock at the lake twice, first in St. Bartholomä with the famous postcard motif der Chapel at the Royal Hunting Lodge and finally at Salet at the end of the lake.
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St. Batholomä is on the Hirschau peninsula, there is a restaurant with a beautiful beer garden am former Jagdschloss, which in its simplicity rather Not reminds of a castle. From about 1700 to secularization 1803 served es as a simple hunting lodge for the Berchtesgaden prince provosts. After that, the Berchtesgaden Augustinian monastery went to the Wittelsbach family and Prince Regent Luitpold I liked to spend time here with his guests.
The chapel is a popular photo motif, especially with the imposing north face of the Watzmann in the background. To some visitors from the rest of the world, the chapel appears Russian. Many people do not associate baroque onion towers with southern Germany, but with Russia.
Despite the many visitors, you can always find a good seat under the chestnut trees in the beer garden in St. Batholomä and enjoy the surroundings, ideally with a somewhat overpriced but good char or trout.
From St. Bartholomä you continue by boat to Salet, the starting point for hikes to the Obersee and on to the Fischunkelalm and the Röthbachfall.
Our early departure was worth it here, because it is still quite empty am Obersee, if you go with one of the first boats. Just an hour later, the peace is disturbed by columns of hikers. But you can always find a quiet spot to enjoy the views.
The landscape around the Obersee is more spectacular than the Königssee, the hike to the Fischunkelalm takes about 40 minutes, to the waterfall 1 1/4 hours.
There are snacks and various drinks on the alp.
Arriving back in Schönau, you can still take a look at the Romy Schneider exhibition, which is in the old train station accommodated ist, to which the railway line from Berchtesgaden used to lead.
Romy Schneider spent her childhood in Schönau am Koenigssee in the house of her mother Magda Schneider, who made her dream of living here on Koenigssee come true with her income. The house of Magda Schneider is now privately owned and hidden behind two meter high hedges. Magda cutter and Romy played together in the Sissy films mother and daughter of the Bavarian royal family.
Berchtesgarden
View of Berchtesgaden from the Emmaus circular route. On the left is St. Andrew's Church, the town's former parish church, on the right is the former collegiate church of the Augustinian Canons' Monastery with its pointed twin towers, and to the right is the façade of the monastery building, which was used as the palace of the Bavarian kings after secularisation.
Until the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss in 1803, Berchtesgaden was a principality directly under the Reich. The prince provosts resided in the monastery building, which was expanded over the centuries. after the end of their reign the Berchtesgadener Land fell to the newly founded Electorate of Salzburg. With the Peace of Pressburg in 1805, Salzburg and Berchtesgaden fell to Austria and remained there until 1810, when Salzburg was incorporated into the newly founded Kingdom of Bavaria. In 1816 Salzburg went back to Austria while Berchtesgaden remained with Bavaria.
The former monastery of canons became the castle of the Bavarian kings.
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A circular route through the city leads to the palace square with the palace, the former collegiate church and the opposite former stables with its arcade arches. In the further course you can walk along the Nonntal road, then take the Emmausweg to the Kirchleitenkapelle to climb up, from where you have a good view of the Watzmann.
Kehlsteinhaus
The Kehlsteinhaus was built under Adolf Hitler and is therefore a very popular travel destination for Americans and other international travelers. It shouldn't come as a surprise when Americans tell us proudly or enthusiastically that they also visited the so-called "Eagle's Nest", as they call the house, on a trip to Germany.
Aside from the gloomy past, this house offers a great view over the entire Berchtesgadener Land. Anyone expecting original furnishings from the Third Reich etc. will only find a mountain inn that doesn't reveal much about its past. If you weren't informed, you wouldn't know where you are.
The house is situated on a rocky spur at an altitude of 1834 meters. It is quite steep downhill on three sides, so that you have a breathtaking panoramic view at a dizzying height. The name Eagle's Nest, which the Americans gave the house, fits because the unusual location is reminiscent of an eagle's nest. However, it can happen that you sit up in the clouds and cannot see anything at all or that there are really many visitors up there when visibility is good.
To get there, you first drive to a parking lot at the Obersalzberg Documentation Center. From there, the journey with your own car is over. From there, buses take visitors via Kehlsteinstraße, which was specially built for this house in 1938, to an elevator, which then takes you directly into the house.
The return trip by bus and the associated ride in the elevator cost 28 euros per person (as of August 2022). There are precisely specified times, bus numbers and time windows.
From October to May, the Kehlsteinhaus is hosted differently and the bus service is closed. The street is always closed to pedestrians, in summer because only buses drive up and down it, in winter because of the risk of avalanches.
The single-lane Kehlsteinstraße overcomes about 700 meters in altitude, it goes through a tunnel, a hairpin bend and finally you reach the entrance of a 124 meter long pedestrian tunnel that leads into the mountain to the elevator, which takes you directly to the Kehlsteinhaus 124 meters above .
It is very cool in the tunnel and finally we reach a circular hall reminiscent of a secret, underground entrance.
All thatlooks like totalitarian architecture and one has associations of James Bond films like "Spectre" where guys who dream of world domination build secret underground control centers and laboratories in remote mountainous regions. It doesn't look homey. Behind us in the elevator line, a group of men creates a strange atmosphere by shouting in a foreign language - is it Estonian? - and loud laughter like a bachelorette party.
From the hall it goes directly into the brass-lined elevator, where a Bakelite telephone still hangs in the elevator cab. Is this all original? A little later we get off directly at the Kehlsteinhaus.
The construction of the entire complex on the Obersalzberg cost the unbelievable sum of 30 million Reichsmarks, which today corresponds to around 180 million euros.
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Die view is bad and we leave it at eating and reading the information boards on the sun terrace.
Die length of stay is only two hours anyway, since the return trip
is planned exactly.
Bad Reichenhall
Bad Reichenhall is a neat, pretty little spa town that somehow reminded me of Meran. This impression is created by the houses, which are painted in light pastel shades that seem almost South Tyrolean, plus the royal spa gardens with some architectural accents from the heyday of spa culture in the 18th century and, of course, the mountains are always in the background._cc781905-5cde-3194- bb3b-136bad5cf58d_
One should go from the Kurgarten to the Florianiplatz in the old town in the Upper Town. On the way are the sights Alte Saline, Rathausplatz and the pedestrian zone Salzburger Strasse and Ludwigstrasse.
The Kurgarten was designed in 1868 by Carl von Effner, who also designed the Herrenchiemsee, Linderhof and Maximiliansanlagen parks on the Isar in Munich.
Architectural accents are set in the spa garden by the graduation house, the foyer with a drinking pavilion and a concert rotunda, and on the southern edge of the park the neo-baroque royal spa house and the spa center on Salzburger Straße with the Hotel Axelmannstein opposite.
From the Kurgarten, continue along Salzburger Straße in the direction of Rathausplatz. At some point the street was renamed Ludwigstraße, on the left side is Café Reber, known for the Mozart balls and various other chocolate pies and pralines.
One should not miss the parallel Poststrasse, whose buildings are more historic than Salzburger Strasse. Both streets lead to the old saltworks and the adjacent town hall square with the Wittelsbach fountain.
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At the Chiemsee
