Crossing the border

In my last post, I signed off from the 1600m high summit of Rossfeld... so that is from where I will continue. As I mentioned the border between Germany and Austria runs through the middle of Rossfeld, the border line is indicated by a number of small white square stones that have a D for Deutschland on one side and an Ö for Österreich on the other.

This allowed me, for my own amusement (and probably nobody else's...), to set my tripod up with one leg on the border and one leg in each country in order to take the following photograph. My thought was that the top part of weather station looked a bit like a droid...

searching for the rebel base

It may be that a lack of food and lack of sleep were affecting my thinking at this point :)

Breakfast helped restore some of my capabilities and I decided to head back across the border and make a visit to the village of Gosau and the lakes at Gosausee which was about an hour's drive into Austria, near to the mighty peaks of Dachstein.

In this part of the Northern Limestone Alps the geology is just right to produce spectacular jagged peaks similar to the Dolomites in Italy, making it very attractive to look at and of course to photograph.

some houses in Gosau, with their spectacular mountain backdrop

From Gosausee you can journey to higher ground by cable car but on this occasion I decided to stay closer to the ground and hike along the path to the the upper Gosau lake. I did not study the signs very carefully but it was possible to see that the route was "suitable for families" and should take about an hour and a half.

As it turned out this route would require quite a bit of effort as it included a number of sustained climbs along the way, it was quite hard going in the early summer sun. Certainly it was suitable for families, as evidenced by the number of frustrated and tearful children I passed by the side of the road on my way. The hour and a half estimate was probably accurate enough for the downhill journey back to Gosausee but for the uphill outward journey I think that it was over-optimistic.

impressive peaks

After reaching the upper lake I continued round the lake to the most welcome sight of the day, the Hohe Holzmeisteralm restaurant, where I could refuel with some cold drinks and a plate of bratwurst. The views around the Gosau lakes were spectacular but the light was too harsh to make for successful photography. I made my way back down the hilly path and drove back to the attractive Gosau village.

It seems to me that the Germans and Austrians have a huge appreciation for the beautiful scenery of their home lands, they seem to be at their best when out in nature and quite at peace with their surroundings. You almost always get a friendly greeting from the "locals" whenever you meet them whereas other tourists tend to be a little more suspicious.

from the hill above Gosau

After wandering around the village for a while I had a look at the map to see what I might do next and realised that I was rather close to Hallstatt, an idyllic village which is also a UNESCO world heritage site. I have tried on a number of occasions to organise a short trip to Hallstatt but the hotels there seem to be permanently full (or at least the ones that mere mortals can hope to afford are permanently full), so I decided to go there and check it out rather than returning directly to Berchtesgaden.

Hallstatt, as it turns out, is quite the tourist trap. As you approach by car you are carefully funnelled towards a sequence of car parks (costing about €3 per hour for the first few hours) from where you continue your visit on foot. The village itself is very nice, but also very touristy, and packed with people. When it comes to photography there, it is of course possible to find different views with varying levels of interest, but the main view is only easily photographable from one single public place - a 10m long gap beside the road from where you can get a view of the church against it's mountain backdrop. This space was packed with photographers.

Hallstatt at dusk

I realised that I did not like the place enough to visit it again, so I decided to get some food and wait for dusk so that I could try and get a decent picture from the one viewing place. I believe that the best time to be there would have been sunrise, the village being in shadow well before sunset due to the mountains, but an early evening shot would have to do. As I got back to the car I could see that I had exceeded 40 thousand steps for the day, and it felt like it. The journey back to my accommodation in the dark was a careful one.

A new day dawned and it was time to change locations - the final two days of my trip would be in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, revisiting some locations from my earlier trip where the weather was mostly un-cooperative.

On that occasion my main target was the hillside above Geroldsee, where some alpine cabins decorate the sloping field with the lake and the mountains in the background. I didn't get what I wanted then, so I continued the search for the right conditions on this trip.

evening at Geroldsee

The mountains leave the scene largely in shadow at sunset (at least at this time of the year) and also partly at sunrise, so the ideal combination for Geroldsee is probably to have mist which endures for an hour or so after sunrise, allowing some diffused light to illuminate the scene.

When my alarm went at 0430 the following morning the conditions looked quite promising, clear-ish but not quite totally clear. As I drove towards the small village of Gerold the conditions changed dramatically... there was a very thick, very local, rather wet mist hanging over the area - visibility of about 50m. 

a cabin in the mist

Things did not quite look so promising at this point, but I still thought it might work so I climbed the hill to get to a good shooting position, my feet truly soaked by the long wet grass of the meadow. The time of sunrise came and went without any major changes in visibility, this may have been a boring passage of time if I had not been joined by a fellow photographer (and optimist) - Patrick Weinhold had arrived and set his tripod up near to mine.

As the sun rose and the mist burned away, we were rewarded for our patience.

a swathe of mist still covers the lake...

It was good to meet Patrick and discuss various photography locations in the area, you can often meet interesting people when setting up your tripod in different locations.

the sun starts to win the battle

On this occasion the mist made a couple of small comebacks before finally being defeated, offering good variations in the scene, and we tried to make the best of our chances.

Geroldsee

This was a good morning after all and I was quite satisfied with events as I walked back towards my car and said goodbye to Patrick and his dog.

I returned to the Werdenfelserei hotel (where I was staying), a completely new hotel which just opened recently, and restored my energy with a truly excellent breakfast. It was a good choice to stay at this family owned hotel, there were still some finishing touches being put to the premises by the builders (it really was that new) but this did not interfere with the experience and it was possible to see immediately from the moment you walked into the reception that they are going to try and do things in the right way there. If they can continue that approach after a month, a year and a decade then it will be a big success.

After breakfast, it was time to get high. Almost 3000m high in fact as I headed to the top of the Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany at 2962m. The weather remained variable, cloudy with clear patches, which meant that there was a real risk of not being able to see much at the summit, but this was my only chance to be there so I went anyway.

There are two easy ways to get to the summit of the Zugspitze - you can take the cog wheel train through the mountain to the skiing station and then a short cable car ride to the summit, or you can take the Eibsee cable car directly from the valley floor (beside the beautiful Eibsee lake) up to the summit.

At the ground level cable car station I was able to read that the cable car broke three world records - the longest unsupported span of wire, the biggest difference in altitude from bottom to top and the tallest support tower - for a cable car. This is all very impressive... but if you are slightly nervous about cable cars you really dont want to hear that - you want to know that it has world records for being the safest, smoothest and least frightening.

from the Zugspitzebahn cable car

Despite some reservations, the journey into the clouds was a smooth one. The cable car ascends quickly (the entire journey takes less than ten minutes, the gondola travelling at nearly 40km/h), the first section is a short one, connecting the ground station to the lone support tower (a 127m tall pylon - meaning that you are over 120m off the ground when the car passes). From there the rest of the journey is without support along the the 3213m wire which stretches between the support tower and the summit. The ride as a whole takes you from an altitude of 973m to one of 2950m.

Upon reaching the summit the visibility was about 100m... there was nothing much to see apart from the activities of the Alpine Choughs which were very actively circling above the bratwurst eating visitors on the sun terrace, looking for scraps.

an alpine chough, ready to swoop on any tasty morsels

I spent a couple of hours at the summit, hoping for some breaks in the weather, but was not lucky. That is my second time to stand at the very top of Germany, and on both occasions there was nothing much to see... maybe one day I will be third time lucky.

the sun is up there somewhere... at the Zugspitze summit station looking down on the skiing area at the glacier station

After descending from the mountain I decided to make the short trip to the village of Wamberg... following a narrow single-track road as it wound it's way up a steep slope. I am not 100% sure that it was allowed to drive that road, I could not understand the German signs... so I was prepared to explain that I was an ignorant and apologetic tourist if anyone objected to my presence. At the top of the winding hill there was a beautiful scene... some mountain cabins with the village church in the background. The weather was cloudy, blocking the mountains, and it was the wrong time of day... but this could be an excellent location in the right light. Another time...

the winding road that leads to Wamberg

In the evening it was time to return to Eibsee, at the foot of the Zugspitze, where I hoped for interesting evening light so that I could take pictures of Frillensee, a very small but very beautiful lake. The light let me down on this occasion, so I tried to find some alternative shots that did not require a beautiful sky.

Eibsee boathouse reflections

The next day was sadly my last one for this trip, I always feel so at home when spending time in southern Germany. On my way back to Munich airport I made a slight detour to check in on another favourite destination, the spectacular Neuschwanstein castle. This castle is an amazing subject for photography but it is undergoing renovations at the moment and the main gate is covered in scaffolding, spoiling the views that I like the most at this location. Another hazard is the huge swarm of tourists that gathers every day to visit the castle, so I confined myself to having a look from far away... I mean to revisit this location in a few months after the renovations are completed.

Some nasty weather at Neuschwanstein

Thanks a lot for reading this post!

Until the next time,
​Andy