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German Roots Trip 2003 - Contents

SEEKING OUR GERMAN ROOTS

Chapter VII

May 28-30, 2003

BAVARIAN ALPS
Mittenwald--the Karwendel

Thursday, May 29

Today was Ascension Day in Germany--a religious holiday. For us, it had a different meaning--we literally ascended to one of the highest points in the Bavarian Alps, the Karwendel range which separates Germany and Austria.

Another sunny morning (but we were now on alert for a thunderstorm later on) greeted us at the Alpenhof. Herr Seidler provided a nice breakfast in his pleasant little dining room. Our plan was to take the cable car ride to the top of that Karwendel mountain range today, and a chair lift ride up into the western mountains tomorrow.

After a half-mile walk we arrived at the base of the cable car. It was pretty much a level walk until the last 100 yards, when we had to climb up several flights of stairs on the hillside. After that huffing and puffing, I particularly appreciated the many meters that the cable car climbed so effortlessly with us inside. This is the second-longest cable car ride in Germany and truly breathtaking.

We were silently lifted up the almost sheer sides of the mountain, watching Mittenwald turn into a miniature village below us.

The cable car station at the top appeared much like one used in a James Bond film--all thick concrete walls--looking something like a bunker perched on the edge of the mountain. But, walking through a tunnel we came out on a sunny deck where some folks were already enjoying their beer--at 10 a.m. in the morning! There was also a restaurant, but it was pretty much deserted at this hour of the day.

The actual summit of the Karwendel ridge was still a couple hundred feet above the station. At first, I was quite content to just sit on that sunny deck and admire the snow-covered bowl and mountain ridges above us.

But Karen coaxed me into walking a little way up the trail, leading to the narrow ridge that separates Germany and Austria. I was still whining a bit, but then a white-haired couple who had to be in their late 80's went past us, heading upwards in street shoes and without their walking sticks.

Well! That was too much of a challenge. Grabbing my camera monopod/walking stick I told Karen, "let's go!" The hike upwards was made much easier because of all the lovely little alpine flowers blooming by the trail.

This was a convenient excuse to stop for a photo opportunity and a breather.

Eventually, we did make the ridge and found a bench that gave us a fantastic view of the Austrian Alps, stretching away to the horizon in wave after wave of rugged mountains.

Karen had brought along her industrial-strength binoculars and in scanning the peaks below us in Austria, we spotted four chamois, strolling confidently on narrow rocky ledges with only thin air below them. Europe's version of mountain goats, I guess.

These were a special treat--later, when telling Herr Seidler of our wildlife spottings, he said seeing a chamois was a very rare occurrence. Not for us! On our ride back down the cable car, we spotted two more chamois, running across a steep snowfield.

Karen also got a close-up look at a lot of interesting birds, although one she hoped to see in that snow bowl never appeared. Some Alpine Choughs, Pyrrhocorax graculus, mountain relatives of the Crow obligingly posed for Karen.

One of the many attractions of this rugged Karwendel ridge isthe fact that it formed the boundary with Austria. Who could resist the opportunity to plant one foot in Austria and the other in Germany? Not me!

People-watching was worthwhile too. Groups of healthy young Germans kept appearing, loaded down with ropes, and all the hardware required for serious rock-climbing. They attached all this to themselves, then headed up--straight up to the very tip-top of one of the Karwendel peaks.

I was grateful I had had the nerve to climb up to this border ridge when a young mother appeared, pushing her baby in a stroller! No wimps on top of the Karwendel.

However....they don't all make it to the top and back down again. By the side of the trail, near a resting bench, was a bronze plaque with a votive candle holder beside it. The plaque read: "To our comrade, Andreas Herwig, who was born in 1964 and who had 'bad luck' on the first of May in 1990." We didn't even want to know just what poor Andreas' bad luck was!

By 1 p.m. we had had ample opportunity to drink in the wonderful alpine scenery, bask in the high-elevation sun and enjoy the birds, people and chamois. We slowly worked our way back down the trail, spotting more sweet little flowers tucked among the rocks. Yellow Primroses, startlingly blue Gentians plus all the ones I could admire but not identify--pink, white, and yellow. Some of these little rock plants are probably hundreds of years old. Spring and summer are compressed into just a few weeks and the growing season is very short at the top of the Karwendel.

Back at the cable car station house, we treated ourselves to kaffee and apfel kuchen. The clouds that would morph into today's thunder storm were already gathering, so we knew it was time to get off the mountain.

It was 3:15 p.m. by the time we got off the cable car and ambled slowly back into downtown Mittenwald where we felt the need for an ice cream treat. We noticed that all the shops were closed, (for the Ascension Day

holiday) but the townsfolk were strolling by, returning from church services, many clad in their traditional Bavarian costumes: dirndl skirts and pretty blouses on the women, the men in their pin-covered hats and "lederhosen" shorts with something like ankle-warmers on the calves of their bare legs. A rather jarring sight was that none of the men were wearing socks inside their good dress shoes!

When we got back to the Alpenhof and our room, we found that the maid had our room all tidied up, with the requisite chocolate upon our pillows. And--all the doors in our room were closed. This seems a good time to remark upon the Germans' attitude toward doors: First, somehow, the Germans manage to insert more doors into the average room than we've ever found elsewhere. Back in Hamburg, we had to open an outer door to our hotel room, only to stumble into a second door which also had to be unlocked before we could reach our beds or the bathroom. Other hotel rooms also managed to insert doors where we would not expect them. Second, all the doors are always closed. Never, never, never did we enter a room and find a single one of these doors left even slightly ajar!

Dinner was tomato soup, followed by Beef Burgundy and noodles, and a pear covered with a currant sauce, with apple pancakes for dessert. Karen's suggestion to take "half board" at the Alpenhof was a very good one. It is so relaxing to know that an excellent dinner will be waiting for us at the end of the day, with no need to troop back into town and seek out a restaurant.

Some tourist literature that we picked up in Mittenwald mentioned that there would be a brass band concert in one of the "cure parks" this evening. I never figured out exactly what a "cure park" was, but this park had beautifully-kept grounds, a lovely pond, and a covered band shell area. Herr Seidler had given us some kind of tourist card which gave us free admission to the concert. As we walked up to the band shell, we could see many rows of chairs out in the open, but no one was sitting on them. That expected thundershower had developed while we were at dinner, leaving all the exposed chairs well rained-on. The storm had dissipated though, and we enjoyed a genuine "oompah" band concert. A clarinet was the only non-brass musical instrument used. All the band members were in those handsome Bavarian costumes and it was fun to hear the music and be invited to clap along with some of the numbers. Only hard part was keeping my feet still!

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