We began today’s journey west towards the famous ski resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen site of the infamous 1936 Olympic Games hosted by Adolf Hitler in thickish fog. Thankfully it soon cleared to a glorious, but fairly warm and humid day.
The fog is starting to lift…
Toll gate? border? not sure but were weaving in and out of Germany and Austria all day…
After we passed the gate we crossed this incredibly well built and stunningly beautiful wooden bridge…
This was the view from the bridge on the right to a waterfall…
and the left…
After cruising through the national park we came out into this beautifully manicured and picture postcard perfect valley and headed towards Garmisch-Partenkirchen about 20 km away on bike paths.
Photo wars…
The field notes say: Garmisch-Partenkirchen was founded by uniting the two towns of Garmisch and Partenkirchen by a decree of Adolf Hitler to bring the 1936 Winter Olympics to Germany. The International Olympic Committee was going to pass over Germany as the host, because there were not enough hotel rooms in the host town, so Hitler forced the unification of Garmisch and Partenkirchen to create a larger town, which would be more appealing to the IOC. Garmish-Partenkirchen is one of Germany’s premier tourist ski towns. It really was a very pretty and quite colourful town for a morning coffee stop.
Ross, Tony and Megan enjoying the rest…
Sara and John? hard to tell, they are almost camouflaged amongst the flowers…
At the base of the major climb of the day we found this small grotto and icons. It really wasn’t that steep to warrant this, but there are a lot of little religious sites dotted along roads all over Europe.
Steve and I spent the next couple of hours slowly climbing this valley and we joined by Michelle who is riding herself into the trip extremely well. It was simply stunning countryside…
Sarah setting up lunch on the banks of the Plansee. We are so blessed to have her looking after us…
Pete, Scotty and Steve enjoyed cooling their legs in the pristine waters of Plansee…
So did Paul. Great to see him back on the bike after being ill for a few days…
Pete and John back on the road which followed to lake for 5 or 6 km before descending down into the next valley. It was an awesome run down on a smooth sweeping road…
We took a cut through the forests (read some unpaved STEEP tracks!) to avoid the tourist crowds and popped out alongside the Alpsee with views up to the fairy tale castle.
the field notes tell us that Neuschwanstein is Europe’s most beautiful castle. It was built on the ruins of two others located on the “Jugend” and was projected to be an elaborate and fantastic style reminiscent of the old German knights’ castles. As a result of the war lost against Prussia in 1866, Ludwig II surrendered his sovereign reigning power and thus the time of the German kings came to an end. However, he decided to reinstate himself as “King” by building a series of castles in the Schwangau Valley, this being his most famous.
The view from the hotel sauna wasn’t bad either!
Some of the group took a tour of the Schloss Linderhof: King Ludwig II’s 19th century palace.
No photos were allowed inside the walls. Well… 
Our awesome photographer, Chris took this beauty…
We had a very pleasant dinner at our hotel, the AMERON Neuschwanstein Alpsee Resort & Spa and got to bed fairly early as tomorrow promises to be another big adventure.
The view of another castle from our bedroom window. So cool…
