Breathtaking Bavaria
Exciting Destinations 
As the plane pierced through the Munich skyline on a clear spring morning, I found myself struck by contrasts. Only here do mountains lie in such perfect proximity to cityscape. The snow-capped Alps gently bow to red roofs, domes, and spires amidst an odd handful of skyscrapers. The following six days of travel would reveal how such contrasts between old and new, between untouched and man-made shine through in perfect coexistence. Beyond the city lights and its towering monoliths of both modern times and antiquity, one can find countryside a stone’s throw away. Folkloric palaces, decadent Baroque churches, cavernous beer halls, and storybook cottages adorned with hand-carved wood and whimsical pastel colors, stand nestled in brilliantly green, fog-laden hills. Outside of Bavaria, one would be hard-pressed to think of many such places where stunning natural beauty lies alongside human progress so gracefully.
Beyond the mere aesthetics of surroundings, although the most obviously captivating feature, it is the people of Bavaria that truly make you fall in love with the place. Curious, warm, and eager to laugh, they greet you with a hearty Gruß Gott! (Good Day!). For every town or city visited, wonderful German guides met us as cultural ambassadors, each seeking not only to reveal the landmark sights and sounds of the area, but also to share his or her own unique tales. My most poignant such experience occurred the day we arrived in Schwangau, situated between mountains, crystal lakes, and the castles of Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau.
After a day meandering inside the walls of these drafty, mysterious giants, complete with the anecdotes of our eccentric guide/hostess, Erih, we prepared for an evening excursion by bus to the alpine hut Saloberalm in Alatsee. Standing lakeside at the bottom of a steep, unpaved road whose top knew no visible definition, the twelve of us (now joined by Erih’s husband Renne and their border collie) began boarding the shuttle when Erih stated decidedly that she would rather hike it. Renne and the pooch agreed. Not to be outdone by a woman over twice my age, my silly pride made me say “Hell, me too.” “You’re crazy,” exclaimed a colleague as the bus took off in a cloud of dust.
We walked and walked, sneaking glimpses over the glass-smooth waters of Lake Alat through the occasional breaks in the tree line. Renne began unfolding the local legend of two sisters who were eternally spellbound to the lake many centuries ago, and that the only thing that could break the curse was the kiss of a young man. But nobody has or will because– he continued as we hung silently on the words of this woeful story, only to pause, now out of breath and starting to giggle uncontrollably, “they are too ugly!” We all burst into unexpected laughter, timed perfectly with our summit of the trail, where we stood looking over unimpeded pink and silver mountains under a radiant, darkening sky. Behind us was the alpine hut, housed on a pristine piece of farmland, a mere 20 feet from the German-Austrian border.
Exhausted but exhilarated, we were greeted by steins of beer and the congratulatory applause of those who had taken the less strenuous way up. “oh and, by the way, that’s Switzerland over there,” Erih pointed. Musing over how only the day before I had been basking in a markedly different, urban experience, and now standing casually in the wild at the merging of three countries, it occurred to me that this place was magical.
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