Parasailing in Garmish-Partenkirchen

While strolling around in Mittenwald the previous day, we ran into a sign advertising tandem parasailing in Garmish-Partenkirchen (next town over, about a 30 min drive), so we decided to check it out. It took a while to get in touch with the woman running the show (she is very busy during the day and doesn't seem to answer her phone much), but in the evening we connected and made a reservation for the following morning.

Tandem parasailing works by taking an inexperienced flyer and strapping them into a two-person harness with "pilot" who actually knows what he or she is doing and can operate the equipment. It is kind of pricey (130+ euros a shot), so we decided that the kids could go but the adults would stay on the ground this time around.

Weather was good Sunday morning (the key factor is the wind-- has to be a calm day), so we hopped in the car and drove out to G.P.  They had their operation set up at the base of the Kreuzeck chairlift to the south of town (big skiing operation in the winter, but the lift still runs in the summer on a limited basis).

We met up with Edith, the leader of the outfit that we'd picked (Aerotaxi) and within only a few minutes she had lined up the "pilots" who would be flying the parasails with our kids. It was not especially difficult to notice the difference between the American way of doing these things (which would have involved lengthy safety lectures, prepayment of all funds, and pages + pages of liability forms to sign) with the European way, which essentially boiled down to "Ok, grab this bag and walk with me to the lift-- you can pay later".

Here are the kids on their way:

On the walk down from the lift we noticed this sign-- a museum devoted to people named Bob?

Photos are kind of mixed up from here on in -- first a sequence of shots taken by Ethan, who brought my camera along for his ride. At the top, getting set up:

Aloft:

 Now some more photos taken with Amy's phone:

Zugspitz, which is just to the east of Kreuzberg (and much bigger -- tallest peak in Germany, even though it doesn't really look like it from this perspective):

A shot of Ethan coming down:

... and landing:

Lydia descending:

Big smiles back on the ground:

It looked like a lot of fun -- I think the next time around I will be very tempted to try it myself!

Bolzano, then Mittenwald

Friday:

At one point we had entertained ideas about trying to get up very early on Friday morning to try to do one of the "Via Ferrata" hikes in the Corvara area, but we were so tired on Thursday night after our 19 kilometer "hike out" from Rifugio Dibona that we never got organized (the bus arrived a bit late, and we would have had to rush into town to rent the climbing harnesses)... this seemed like too much of a hassle, so we opted to do Friday on a somewhat more relaxed schedule. We got up at a reasonable hour, had breakfast (more conversations with the Brits), got packed up, and then drove our way over to the city of Bolzano to visit the archeological museum, which was fun. Parking was a bit of challenge, but we did eventually find a lot with a free space, then walked into the city center to see the museum.

The chief attraction of the museum is that it houses "Ötzi" the ice man, the mummy discovered emerging from a melting glacier back in 1991. As it turns out, just about everything in the museum is about him (there really weren't any other exhibits to speak of). Still, there is some really astonishing stuff that they had there, including all of the various tools and kit that he was carrying (knife, bow, axe, backpack, etc) as well as exhaustive analysis of his body, etc (using DNA, carbon dating etc). It was definitely a huge discovery-- a game changer in many ways when it came to the "copper age" neolithic humans.

We had lunch at a cool restaurant called "ZenZero" -- weird mix between Asian dishes (Pad thai noodles), Mediterranean food, and foccaccia, but very tasty. From then it was back into the car and onto the autostrada to complete the journey up to Mittenwald.

We arrived around 4:30ish I think? After the comparatively non-existent wifi in Pension Angelo the kids were desperate to reconnect digitally, so Amy and I went for a walk on our own to scope things out. Fair number of pedestrians out and about in the main drag... it was a lively scene. We visited the tourist info center, looked for grocery stores + bakeries, and headed down to the train station to check out the bike rental place.

Mittenwald has a sort of old-fashioned feel to it, a bit more sleepy than the places we've been to so far. The hotel had the same feel -- slightly dim, cavernous lobby, sizeable rooms with space to stretch out and nice small balconies with a couple of chairs in which to sit while reading.

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant.  I had the pan-fried trout, which turned out to be very good -- possibly the best piece of trout I have had in many years (very fresh, seasoned well, and perfectly cooked). The salad and potatoes were quite tasty as well.

Central square, main church:

Saturday:

After breakfast we decided to rent bikes and ride out to one of the nearby lakes, which (we were told) offered swimming possibilities. Getting set up with the bikes proved fairly straightforward, but once we got going it became immedaitely apparent that the bike map (which we'd purchased for 3 euros at the tourist center) was completely inadequate... not enough detail.  We did manage to muddle our way along, however, and after bunch of fits and starts we wound up at a small lake ("Barmsee") north of Mittenwald. More or less by accident we found a swimming area off to the side (not really marked) and paid our 3 euros to get in -- it turned out to be a really nice place to swim.

Water was cool but not freezing. It reminded me a little of the place that we go to swim in Wallingford VT, near where my mom lives-- lots of "locals", families with little kids, etc.

After our swim we fortitied ourselves with ice cream, then cycled over to a nearby town ("Krais") in search of lunch. There was just a single cafe there, so we settled in and ordered some food.

Amy had sausage with potato salad, I had a weird bowl of soup that looked like meat broth with strips of cut up pancakes (can't recall the name), and the kids ordered "large schnitzel salads", which turned out to be enormous (they weren't kidding about the 'large' part):

Amazingly, Ethan was able to eat the entire thing (Lydia got close but didn't quite polish hers off). On the road biking back to Mittenwald:

After a short break to rest, we walked down to the "Geigenbau" (violin-making) museum here in town. It was interesting-- Mittenwald apparently has a long history of violin-making.  Although most of the major signage was done in both German and English, but there were still a lot of exhibits that had German signs without any English translations, grumble (there was a big one in the middle that was showing the various compounds they put into the varnish that I wish they'd had translations for, but no dice-- oh well). Even so, it was still an interesting visit.

Viola di Amoro (sp?):

One of the many painted storefronts/housefronts in town -- this was very common to see:

We visited the grocery store ("REWE") after that to stock up on water, fruit, chocolate, etc. Nice place (inexpensive to boot).

After that we biked over to the train station to return our bikes. The owners were long gone (they had left around noon), but they gave us instructions to lock our bikes to a specific railing, which we did. After locking up you are supposed to deposit the keys in this contraption (interesting!) that funnels them down into a plastic basin:

Relaxing on the balcony:

View from the balcony to the southwest -- nice sunset:

On the Road to Corvara

Amy and I got up at 6:30 and had a nice leisurely breakfast at the hotel; I got caught up on my blogging a bit. We (very rudely) woke the kids at 7:30 and then everyone got breakfasted, packed and organized.  We did the big baggage schlepp to get everything carried over to the train station; thankfully, our train was already in the correct berth, so we were able to pick good seats and get our luggage squared away.

German trains can be awesome when everything lines up correctly, and this was certainly the case with out ride. Speedy, quiet, great views, comfy seats... and we left and arrived right on time.

We got off the train in Garmisch and walked over to the Eurocar rental office, where we cornered the single harried/busy (and also extremely polite) clerk, and filled out the paperwork for our rental. Car was a Ford Focus wagon (memories of our year in Cambridge!), roomy enough for the four of us and all our various bags.

We decided to eat lunch in Garmisch, so we drove over to a restaurant at the base of the old Olypmpic ski jump and had a bite to eat there. Competition for parking was intense, but we lucked out when a guy in a Porsche pulled out of a spot right ahead of where we were (he even hopped out and gave us his parking ticket/receipt, which still had an hour on it). The ski jump looks as though it has been refurbished/modernized, but the stands at the base of the jump looked like there were the originals from 1936 (or whenever it was).

Left the restaurant around 12:30; the drive was nice for most of the way -- sunny skies, gently curving mountain roads, spectacular scenery.  It was a solid 3.5 hour drive to Corvara; the roads were good up until the last 50 km or so, when they turned smaller and windier. The last 10-15 kilometers were really crazy, since they were packed with bike riders taking rides in preparation for the big bike race the next day (had to drive really carefully).

Random castle-like thing along the drive:

The race ("Maraton des Dolomiti") starts in a neighboring town, goes through Corvara, then makes a loop and comes back to finish in Corvara. The town was very crowded indeed -- tons of people everywhere. We did manage to meet up with the Colletts people and get keys to our apartment, which was nice -- it is in the central part of town but not right on the main drag.

Here is the view to the north from the steps leading up to the apartment:

The apt:

We made a trip to the grocery store to buy provisions, then at 6pm we went over to the chalet with the main Colletts office and met up with some of the folks there to get organized. We signed up for a "moderate" day hike, picked up a trail map, and chatted for a while with the guides/leads.

Munich

Wednesday:

Flight out was on Iceland Air, which was a new experience for all of us. Overall it was fine, nothing to complain about. The plane was a new-looking Boeing 757, and the seats were not too bad. The in-fight entertainment was a weird mix of Icelandic films and TV shows (with English subtitles) and regular American films and TVs. When you turned on the TV set it would make you watch a sort of promotional piece, five minutes of advertising to inform you of all the wonderful things you could do in Iceland (and encouraging you to book a flight with a multi-day stopover).  We got to Rekjavik airport around 2am Boston time, went through customs, and made it into the next leg of the flight to Munich. The Rekjavik airport is small by international standard but very sleek and modern looking.

Thursday:

Got to Munich at 1pm local time; very warm! Mid eighties. We had booked seats on the Lufthansa bus, so we took that to the main train station in town and walked to the hotel from there.

ART hotel Munich is maybe a three or four block walk from the train station-- good central location. The "art" in question is mostly of the modern variety -- posters and sculpture sprinkled around various place in the hotel. It's a nice place to stay; comfy rooms, A/C, and a nice breakfast.

We sort of muddled through our first day, since everyone was pretty jet-lagged. Once we had a chance to shower and get unpacked, we headed out for an expedition to see the Victualienmarkt, the an open-air market in the city center. It was nice -- good looking produced and baked stuff, not to mention a smallish beer garden. We poked around the shops for a while and then eventually sat down for a bit on some of the benches.

Marienplatz -- here is the famous Glockenspiel:

On tour:

A closeup:

Your truly:

I thought this was an interesting mini-statue, so I snapped a picture of it. [We learned later on from our bike tour guide that the smallish angels on the side of this statue are supposed to be represented as attacking various sins/scourges -- the snake that this one it turns out to be a representation of the evil Heresy (a.k.a. the Protestants)]

Stopping at the biergarten:

In Victualienmarkt:

Dinner was at Zwickl, a cafe quote close to the market. The specialty was a kind of meatball ("Pflanzerl"); Amy ordered a vegetarian Planzerl plate, I had veal meatballs, Ethan had Osso Bucco, and Lydia had a pasta dish. Food was good; very tasty (Amy's dish was the most interesting). After that we slogged back to the hotel (20 min walk or so) and collapsed into bed. Whew.

Friday:

Amy and woke up around 2:30, then tossed and turned for a while and finally got back to sleep and woke again at 7:30. Kids slept through until 4:30, then spent a while in their room and went down to breakfast at 6:30. Lydia tells me that they definitely enjoyed the breakfast (she told me that "Ethan went back to two of everything"). We made our was over to the train station around 9:30 to collect our bikes for a bike tour with a local outfit. Tour started at 10am; it was mostly Americans with a few Irish folk and others mixed in. On our way through the train station to find the bike rental place:

Getting kitted out:

We asked for helmets, but the rental place wasn't really set up for that -- they scrounged around and found a bunch but they were all too small for our heads. This was kind of a problem for me, since I had expected to have a helmet to keep the sun off my bald spot. I improvised with a bandana (looks ridiculous, but prevents suburn effectively):

On the tour:

There were two themes for the tour: King Ludwig of Bavaria (who built many of the interesting buildings we saw) and Hitler (who used Munich as a base for his operations, and who came to power while living there). This path runs past a Ludwig-constructed art museum and across a square that Hitler used for book-burning of all things:

The bikers:

The bikes were good -- city bikes with good tires and internally geared hubs. Not cheap.

This fellow on the statue looks as though he is calling out for something or someone...

We later encountered this statue... same guy as before? In which case, perhaps he had been calling out for his horse?

Lydia looking laid-back and urban:

Schwalbe tires, some of the best you can buy for urban biking:

This was a memorial to the victims of the Nazis:

Found this in the middle of a city square. "StadtLesen.com" could be translated as "City Reading" -- and that is indeed what was going on.

Interior of a church just off the same square:

The royal residence (interior portion):

A photo while riding:

Entering the English garden (which is quite large and very nice):

Selfie while biking:

Still in the English garden:

The Chinese Tower -- this is next to one of the biggest beer gardens in Munich -- has more than 7000 seats.

Ethan on the wheel:

The main river running through the city is quite cold and swift, and there is a section where they channel it through the park -- due to a lump on the riverbed it has a standing wave, which of course attracts surfers:

The Bavaria administrative offices:

The last bit of the tour took us to the Hofbrau house, which I wasn't really all the interested in seeing (we walked in and walked back out in about 20 seconds). A shot on the inside:

Amy taking photos outside:

Our group was cycling along back to the train station when we encountered a van with this graphic -- very eye-catching for some reason:

The tour finished up successfully; we decided that we would extend the bike rental for a few more hours, have a quick lunch, and then zoom back over to the English garden to swim in the river there. We snatched a few sandwiches from a kiosk at the station and brough them back to the hotel, lock our bikes, and had lunch in the kids room. Ethan and I got our bathing suits on, then we headed out.

Alas, this is where things started to go off the rails a bit. We discovered after riding for maybe 1km that Lydia's bike had a flat tire -- yikes. At that point Amy decided she would take Lydia back to return their bikes to the rental place (Lydia had really wanted to relax back at the hotel as opposed to more biking); Ethan and I continued on.

The swimming was terrific -- in the park they essentially have channels or offshoots of the main river that flows through town. The current is very strong and the water is cold but not totally freezing. The way that it works is that you hop in at a certain point and just get swept along by the current for a good bit, then you hop back out, walk back up the river, and repeat. Photos:

Definitely one of the best "inner city" swimming experiences I've had. Meanwhile, the main grassy parts of the park were absolutely covered with sunbathers -- very popular on a Friday afternoon.

Ethan did a couple more river transits, then we cycled for a bit more and located an ice cream stand. Ice cream is weirdly inexpensive in Munich -- all you need for a small cone is a couple of euros (good deal less than at Rancatore's in Lexington).

We eventually made our way back to the train station, returned our bikes after getting the "ok" from the owner, walked back to the hotel. At that point I found out from Amy that the bike rental folks had told her that they were unable to offer her a refund without having my credit card (she had returned their bikes early, and we had paid by the hour). So I trudged back to the train station and waited in line again to talk with the rental guy. At this point he said, OK, I can give you a refund -- let me just give you cash, that would be easier (apparently there weren't actually any "credit card problems" after all). He gave me some euros, I walked back to the hotel again, and then when I talked with Amy I discovered that she had returned the bikes two hours early, whereas the bike guy had refunded me only one hour's fees. Grumble.  At that point I decided it would not be worth the extra hassles... score one for the rental guys...

After showers and some down time we took a cab back over to the Virtualienmarkt and did some shopping, then had dinner at "Buffet Kull", a seafood place.  We were a bit warm (our table was parked partway inside and partway outside), but the food was good. Amy and I had "charfish" (very tasty, served with grilled scallions and tomatoes), Lydia had "gilthead", also quite good (served with a nice big plate of sauted spinach, right down Lydia's alley). Ethan had a chicken dish of some sort.

 We then walked our way back to the hotel, window shopping along the way... long day.