Third try’s a charm for the Partnachklamm!

Noah and I have been hearing about Bavaria’s own natural phenomenon –Partnachklamm - for some time now.  Our attempt to take visitors to the gorge last month was foiled by maintenance.  We then reserved a car for the holiday brückentag a few weeks ago with hopes of visiting the gorge, but instead we were met with a downpour, so we resorted to a fun day of running errands.  This time around we were determined to see this place come rain or come shine.

My parents arrived on Saturday, and we rented a car for the Monday holiday (one of the 4 we have this May).  My parents had tried to see this place last year, but also were met with a closure.  So even though the weather forecast wasn’t ideal, we were doing this!  

We piled the six of us in our Statt Auto car (had to take the dogs too), and began our hour-long drive south.  Not surprisingly given our record here, we were met with dark clouds and light rain when we arrived in Garmisch.  We were prepared with our raincoats and cameras, and the rain wasn’t going to stop us now!

We parked in the Olympia Skistadion lot and fell in line with the rest of the people heading to the gorge.  I guess with it being a holiday, many Bavarians had the same idea to get outside despite the weather.  We walked the 20 minutes or so along the road to get to the beginning of the gorge, and paid the small entrance fee.

You can opt for the carriage ride too

We trekked along the narrow path that hugged the cliff wall, and before we knew it the skies cleared up and we could see the sun coming through the top of the cliffs!  This made for some amazing lighting throughout the gorge (only a kilometer or so long), and lit up various waterfalls for our viewing pleasure.  I knew what to expect based on photos online, but I have to say – I think it exceeded my expectations.  For lack of a better description, it was really cool.  Hey, I have a cold, my creativity with words is lacking right now.

The dogs did pretty amazing, given that the path can get a bit narrow, and it can make for some tight spaces when people are heading the opposite way as you. Rita only ‘pancaked’ twice (when she freaks out and just sprawls herself flat on the ground so you can’t move her), and they were smart not to get too close to the edge of the path.  Though they are always thrilled to be allowed to come along, regardless of the destination.

Overall I would definitely recommend this as a place to visit if you are in the Garmisch area – it is a pretty easy ‘hike’ (more like a walk), the path has rails for those scared of heights/falling off the edge (like me – it isn’t bad, really), and the scenery is really cool (to quote my clever self from earlier).

Sadie ist der Hammer!

After watching 3 or 4 episodes of Germany’s equivalent of American Idol, Deutschland sucht den Superstar, Julie and I began to wonder why certain people were being equated to hammers.  It seemed that being called a hammer was a good thing based on the performances we watched (Yeah, great performance….you are the ‘hammer’!), but we still were not really sure what it meant.  After looking into it a bit more we found out it is the equivalent of “you are awesome” or “you are the bomb” in German. 

We now have the phrase deeply imprinted in our brains after this weekend.  To back track a bit - we had the dogs shaved two weeks ago at the dog salon across the street to prepare for summer.  Apparently the people here prefer the shorter hair because we’ve noticed that since the haircut, the girls get a lot more attention than normal.  Normally, we only get asked about the dogs once a month or so.  However, with their new haircuts someone stops us every 5 minutes to ask which breed they are (mostly Sadie), or simply remark ‘aww… süß’ (aww…. sweet). 

To bring this blog full circle: we were walking through Nymphenburg park this weekend and the dogs were attracting a lot of attention.  At least 5 people stopped us to ask about the dogs during our 15-minute loop through the park.  We even had people talk about the dogs in Spanish at one point (¡Mira! ¡Mira!).  But nothing can beat the one guy we saw pass by on a bicycle, loop around to chase us down, and proclaim that Sadie is ‘der Hammer’!

We always knew we had amazing dogs, but we didn’t realize Sadie was as good as the semi-finalists we watch on reality TV.  But I don’t know if Sadie likes all of the attention.  She started wearing sunglasses this week to disguise herself from the paparazzi.

P.S.  For those wondering about poor Rita – before the haircut, she was always the more popular pup in Germany.  Her time will come again.  Plus she won't cooperate for a sunglasses photo shoot.

Welcome to the Hotel Weiss (such a lovely place....)

Last week, Hotel Weiss officially opened for the 2013 season with our first visitors this year – our friends from Phoenix, Stacy and Adam (though none of us live in Phoenix anymore as of 1 week ago).  They are the first of 11 total guests over the next 3 months – or at least those are what we know of today.

They landed around lunchtime on Tuesday, so I took them for some tried and true good jet-lag lunch food – döner kebap over by Rotkreuzplatz.  This is the same place we have taken a few other guests – including my mother, who took this awkward photo of one employee with the döner:

Noah made it home early from work, so we picked up some chicken from the Tuesday chicken cart and headed over to Hirschgarten’s biergarten for dinner and beer.  We all Noah lucked out in that Hirschgraten was showing the UEFA Dortmund vs. Real Madrid semifinal game on the big screens.  Stacy and I started with our backs to the screen, but had to eventually turn around - it just became too creepy to have all those faces staring our way.  

The next day the pups got to join us for a pizza picnic in Hofgarten followed by bocce ball in the Englischer Garten.  Sadie became obsessed with a woman riding horse around us – I had to keep her leashed up or she would have tried to become friends with the horse – and most likely fail miserably.  And while I kept her from that danger, it might have been my fault one of the bocce balls hit her in the face.  I have never felt so guilty in my life – I think I was more upset about it than Sadie was.

We spent the evening over at Frühlingsfest for more chicken and beer, and again… Noah was able to watch the UEFA FC Bayern vs. FC Barcelona semifinal game in the beer tent!  The place definitely had a different atmosphere with the game playing (as we were there the Saturday before with some international friends… and 1 authentic German), but it was a very happy one with FC Bayern winning 3-0 and clinching a Germany vs. Germany UEFA cup final.  We also got surrounded by a German boy band ‘flash mob’ – but not sure how flash mob it really was when there isn’t much room between the tables for their few dancers.  And a huge shout out to Stacy and Adam for partaking in the traditional Lederhosen and Dirndl!  Now they really need to come back for Oktoberfest to get their money’s worth out of it!

Thursday we stayed in the city center spending money… what else can you really do in bad weather?  We continued our theme of daily German food at Zum Franziskaner – this time treating our guests to an eclectic combination of Weißwurst, authentic Wienerschnitzel, and Kaiserschmarrn.  While all three authentic German/Bavarian food on their own – I don’t think they really go together.  But no one complained.

We switched things up for dinner and went to a Greek restaurant.  Our old Munich friend Laura joined us, so Noah and I were able to toast her goodbye (again) at dinner.  She found a job in Cincinnati and was here in Munich to finish up her last 2 weeks at Intel.  That just means her and her soon-to-be husband need to come to Munich on vacation, instead of business trips.

Our plans for Friday originally included walking through the Partnachklamm Gorge, as we had heard cool things about it.  We even pre-booked one of our car sharing vehicles for the day.  Unfortunately for us, they decided to ‘close’ the gorge for the week for maintenance, and it would open again Saturday.  But we had a car for Friday – not Saturday!  We decided to be resourceful and just find another place to visit with the car.  Solution: Eibsee and Zugspitze!  

We began with a nice 7km hike/walk around the Eibsee – a lake at the bottom of the Zugspitze mountain (which, by the way, is the highest point in Bavaria – the mountain, not the lake).  Here we made fast friends with the ducks, who clearly are used to people feeding them.  At one point we stopped to look at the lake on a small hill, and this little duck came walking all the way up the hill to try to beg.  Impressive little climber!  We also found a rock shaped like Texas, so naturally I had to stop and give it a photo shoot.

After the 7km hike/walk, we took the cable car to the top of Zugspitze, which left both Stacy and I rather uneasy.  The mountain is 2,962 meters above sea level – or an elevation gain from the bottom of 1,950 meters.  Whatever way you look at it – you are going very high, very fast.

Once at the top, you take an elevator up 3 floors to get to the actual summit.  It is amazing how tiny Eibsee looked from up here.  After stomaching all I could handle of the heights, we moved to Deutschlands höchster Biergarten (Germany’s highest beer garden) for lunch.  I can say I had a real beer at the top of Germany – no Radler for me that day!  

For our guests’ last day in Munich, we decided to focus on the biergarten experience (again).  We first went into the city center to hit up Viktualienmarkt – the large open market near Marienplatz – to pick up a nice lunch spread.  After a quick detour to see the Hofbräuhaus, we hopped on the Ubahn up to Olympiapark, where Rita and Sadie cuddled in the small space between the seats.

Once there, we somehow managed to hit up two separate biergartens.  We did split them by stomping around the park grounds and making it to the highest hill there for some nice views of Munich and the Alps.  It was also nice that Stacy and Adam had one day of beautiful weather in Munich – how we wish it was every day!  Sadly this marked the end of their Munich leg, and we woke up Sunday to an empty apartment.  Well, not too empty – we had two waggly little dog butts to greet us in the morning.

In 9 days, Hotel Weiss will welcome my parents, and we will do it all over again!