Day 6: Bavarian Forest ending in Neuschwanstein

Today we drive along the German alps, after a good breakfast in Bad Reichenhall we head to the Masererpass, 793m high in the Bavarian Alps, Chiemgau, close to Reit im Winkel. Nice views of the Kampenwand, 1669m high and castles such as Hohenaschau. Still a bit of rain but clearing up as we leave the hotel bright and early..

Going on to Bayrischzell to the Kesselbergstrasse leading to a lake, the Kochelsee followed by the Walchensee. A train, the Herzogstandbahn’ leads to the mountain 1600m high, which is known as the most loved spot by Koenig Ludwig II. The weather improves by the minute and our mood is getting better and better too. We also joined a meeting point in Bad Toelz where some of our rally peers had organized a picture taking for a local article in the newspaper. We proudly presented our newspaper article which was online yesterday and printed today in the Passauer Neue Presse.

Going on to ‘find’ THE mountain in Germany, Zugspitze, at 2,962 m above sea level we were delighted that the sun was finding its way through the clouds more and more. It is the highest peak of the Wetterstein Mountains as well as the highest mountain in Germany. It lies south of the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and the Austria–Germany border runs over its western summit. We debated to go up since there was still some fog and it is quite expensive.. but decided that it simply has to happen! The weather cleared up while we took the cable car and we even could go for a sledge ride on the glacier!!!

We drove on to get to a SAC event seeing all our rally friends to meet for beer & dinner, the last task of the day seeing the Ettaler Sattel to reach Oberau along Oberammergau and Unterammergau. Having driven the whole time we decided it is time for a few detours.. first to get good ice cream.. a heavenly Spaghetti ice cream in Oberammergau with live guitar music and then to do something for 'culture'... we went to the Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by brothers J. B. and Dominikus Zimmermann, the latter of whom lived nearby for the last eleven years of his life. By then it was sunshine and no clouds what so ever..

Meeting everybody and sharing what happened so far was fantastic. Many cars had issues and needed some help, often our fellow rally team 100 gets the call – driving an ‘ADAC’ vehicle (German version of AAA), father and 2 sons .. It feels that they can’t get to enjoy the tour since everybody calls them with their car problems. Talking to them we learned though that they are very happy and proud to save so many teams to be able to continue their journey versus having to give up. We met more rally fellows tonight and had fun at the bottom of Neuschwanstein, it could not have been a more lovely spot for beer, barbeque and Bavarian music in a private tent, following all corona rules.. mask/distance/no dancing, a very nice arrangement. Listening to the Bavarian live band was terrific but .. you can only take so much.. we had to warm up with a nice shot of local brewed Marillenschnaps before we went to our room to write the blog and select our prints for the roadbook.. another very, very full day but one of the best with the right mix of driving and sightseeing!!!

And finally.. one of the weekly missions accomplished too!!!