This is our first real holiday in Bavaria. Sure, we've been in the state of Bavaria a couple of time, but it was more of passing through, and not really staying on for more than 2 nights. So this year, we decided to spend our summer holiday in the
Berchtesgaden of the German Bavarian Alps. It is located near the Austrian border, and has some of the most spectacular views we have ever seen!
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| Haus Hubertus |
The three most important elements for any family holiday - fresh air, lots of space and endless activities, were all fulfilled here. We have booked ourselves into a half-board hotel. With breakfast and dinner settled, all we needed to do was to concentrate on the activities. We visited the
Salzbergwerk in Berchtesgaden. It is one of the oldest and biggest salt mine in Europe. It has been turned into a huge fun-filled family destination, complete with slides, train/boat rides with impressive multimedia experience.
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| Charming little town of Schönau |
Then, there were castles to visit. We picked the one right next door, in Schönau. The Berchtesgaden Royal Palace was used as the summer residence/hunting lodge of the Bavarian Royal family. Because it was used primarily during the hunting season, it's more roughly fitted out, not at all the normal grandeur one expected. [Note: So, if you are a hunting freak, like all weaponry of sorts, and admire mounted trophies of furry four legged nature (and stuff animals as table ornaments), this might be a stop for you. We only found this out later when we were half way through the tour. I don't know about you, but as we were on holiday, we tend to do a lot of things spontaneously without doing much of background reading... thus this element of errr... surprise. ;-)] Later, it served as a monastery of the Augustiner.
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| The courtyard of the monastery |
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Caught on display of a shop in
Berchstesgaden. What a nice change
from your typical garden Gnomes! |
About 30 minutes walk away is the very much visited
Königssee. The walk through a canopy of trees along the river was refreshing. The destination was a typical letdown, when we came face to face with McDonald's and a gigantic, fully packed parking lot... with thousands of tourists crawling around and hundreds of shops peddling souvenirs and local cuisine! Arrghh! Don't get me wrong, the lake itself was beautiful. The commercialization was anything but.
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| The live and bustling Königssee |
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Take the back route, by pass the tourists.. and here you'll
have the purest tranquility of the lake! |
We skipped the boat ride, thus skipping the trip to the St. Bartholomä, a famous pilgrimage church located on a peninsula along the lake shore. [Note: Ah yes, we tend to skip these "tourist traps". Well, we had even skipped Gondolas ride, the BOTH times we were in Venice!] Instead, we took a nice scenic walk around the lake. Here are some breathtaking pictures from another route we took, via cable car to the peak of the Jena, then hiked downwards towards the middle cable car station.
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| At the peak of Jana - absolutely amazing! |
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| A breathtaking view of the Königssee! |
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| All pure nature |
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| A cheeky little raven trying to steal lunch |
And of course, we also visited
Salzburg, home to one of the world's most famous composer - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Needless to say, we visited the Mirabell Palace, explored the Old Town, picnicked along the Salzburg Residenz, and walked along the Mozartsteg, which is an Art Nouveau bridge for pedestrians. Baby M was very taken in with the hundreds (if not thousands) of
Love padlocks fixed to the sides of one of the bridges we crossed. He insisted on closely examining each and every one of them. We had a hard time tearing him away.
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Street performers (not shown here) at the
entrance of the Mirabell Palace |
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| Mozartsteg |
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| Mozartplatz |
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Love padlocks on one of the bridges
in Salzburg |
Right in our backyard was the high ropes course cum climbing parks to romp, climb and explore. Baby A did the course with Daddy. As Baby M was too young/small we hung around and played. We swam almost everyday, and there were excellent programs for children. Baby M was even allowed to join in the campfire on the last day. It was the kids' first bonfire, so they had an absolutely wonderful time roasting marshmallows, and grilling sausages!
All in all, we had a wonderful time. We are already planning ahead to try someplace new next Summer. But for now, we'll stick to somewhere familiar during the Whitsun school holiday... :-))
