King of the Lakes

The Bavarian summer season is quickly fading along with our chances to do summertime activities.  This weekend we took the opportunity to make a quick trip down to Königsee in the lower Alps (direct translation: Kings Lake, a translation which has bailed us out many times when we are struggling with the German phonetics).  We were also in this area with Logan and Ashley last year, but we scratched a visit to the lake because access by boat is restricted in the fall/winter.  After work on Friday, we packed up the dogs and headed out after for the 2 ½ hour drive to our Gästehaus Böhm. 

View from our Gästehaus 

We woke up early on Saturday to catch the first boat out at 8:00 (and the dogs licking our hands at 6:30am pretty much ensured we would not be late).  This turned out to be a critical piece of advice I received from a coworker.  We rushed through our hotel breakfast, packed up the car, and made our way down to the lake.  We were shocked to see that instead of these multi-tier, large capacity ships we are used to on lakes like Starnberg, we would be riding in a small ~50 passenger cruiser around the lake.  After securing tickets for all four of us (even the dogs had their own ticket), we awkwardly crammed in to what was already a packed boat.  Clearly this place was about to get very crowded.

The views on the lake in the early morning were absolutely spectacular.  The water was perfectly still and there was just a hint of lingering fog on the water, which of course means lots and lots of pictures. 

One of the highlights of the lake is the famous echo wall, and the boat guides play a trumpet duet to demonstrate.  It’s hard to make an echo sound really interesting, but this was definitely a pretty amazing echo and something you should go check out for yourself. 

We rode the boat straight across the lake to the end to get as far away from the surging crowds expected for the day.  We arrived at the Salet port to the most beautiful, calm scenery just as the sun was rising over the mountains. 

From there it was a 15 minute walk to the neighboring Obersee, where we then hiked for about an hour to the opposite side.  We had a nice picnic at this end before making our way back to the boats.  Lots of photos coming… 

As we got closer and closer to the docks, we started to encounter all the crowds.  We realized how lucky we were to have such a peaceful morning just by waking up a bit early.  We made a quick stop at one of the intermediate stops along Königsee (St. Bartholomä), which is famous for its picturesque church.  But the masses became too much for us after our very quiet morning.  Instead of lingering, we caught the next ship back, grabbed an ice cream cone, and made our way back to Munich. 

Crowds back at the main shore

Driving home we realized that having sights like Königsee just a few hours away is further proof that Bavaria will probably be the most beautiful place we will ever live…