Sunday started with blue skies, but also, unfortunately, with me having caught an upset stomach. Because of this and the expected worsening of the weather, we only did a short round-trip for lunch. Not a good day to celebrate Mother's Day, unfortunately.


Short trip. Allowed us to lower our daily average a bit...

We started by driving up towards Passo Falzarego where we turned right towards Passo Valparola (2192m). One caveat regarding the road conditions on heading out (or coming into) Cortina d'Ampezzo. There are several big drops and damaged pavements at the entrance of Cortina coming from the passes. So please drive carefully and use your front-axle lift if you happen to have one. These road imperfections have been there for years, so there is a chance that they have been left there to slow down people that come in a bit "hot". Also, the road up to Falzarego at the higher altitude is even more damaged than the down-direction. We drove carefully, avoiding potholes and getting quite a bit shaken.



View from the hotel room before the rain started

Since I was not feeling well, we didn't take many stops to take pictures. The roads were still fun, but once we reached Alta Badia, the rain started as well. We did get to visit the Pizzeria for lunch this time, but I was not able to eat. To be honest, I was happy to get back to the hotel and rest with some tea and slowly eating an apple and banana.

Fortunately, a good night sleep helped me recover and I was ready to catch up on some Mother's Day activities we originally had planned for Sunday: Shopping for some local souvenirs. We wanted to check out some of the wood carving stores back in the Val Gardena area, drive more passes and revisits some that we enjoyed previously, had some good food (though still being careful to not upset my stomach).



While my stomach got better, the weather did the opposite: It was foggy, cold and rainy. But this did not deter us. The first pass was again Passo di Giau, which due to the bad weather had much less traffic, especially less bicycles and bikes. We did meet a group of mostly German cars, lead by a local in a BMW M2CS at the top of the pass.



The fog was so thick that the mountains disappeared and the roads were so wet that the front tires picked up lots of dirt:



Fog is covering the mountain view

Fog is covering the mountain view


Heading down the south side, we wanted to venture a bit beyond Selva but many of the roads were closed due to construction, so we ended up heading towards Caprile and then back up to SR48 and over Passo Pordoi. Driving up the passes many turns from Arabba was a lot of fun. We did encounter some hardcore bicyclists that braces the elements (we ran into them a couple of times later again, lots of respect!). Once we reached the top of the pass, we decided to enjoy some typical Italian pasta and the view into the fog.





Heading down Pordoi and then up the Sella pass in the rain was fun and gave us another experience compared to our previous drives over the passes. Bad weather = Empty roads = fun 😁

Once we arrived in Selva-Wolkenstein, it took a bit until we found a woodcarving shop that was open in the off-season. We spent quite some time in the shop and enjoyed a lot of the artful carvings. Since our GT4RS was (fortunately?!) already pretty full with our luggage, we only bought some small carvings and souvenirs, though I did really like the owl carved out of a tree stump.




On the way back, we drove over Passo Gardena (aka Grödner Joch) and Passo Valparola. We did see the 4 hardcore bicyclists again on the way up the Gardena pass 🫡. The fog and low hanging clouds gave the pictures an ominous mood.






Once we returned back to the hotel, i found my first car I owned parked in the hotel garage! A Triumph Spitfire. A great photo opportunity to show my first and newest car in the same picture. The Spitfire wasn't traveling alone but also brought a TR250 along.



Guess which car is larger?

 

Next day, it was time to bid farewell to Cortina and the Dolomites and head into Austria to Zell am See via another highlight of the trip: the Glossglockner Hochstrasse. Intermittent rain was moving in from the South, so we hoped that we will be able to stay ahead of the deteriorating weather and catch up to sunnier weather.



First we drive towards Misurina and the Tre Cime (Drei Zinnen), hoping to catch a glimpse of the 3 imposing rock formations and to go for some hikes. The weather was better than expected (it had more sunbreaks than rain showers), but the clouds were hiding the peaks from view.



I wonder how many cars drove into the lake before they put this warning sign up....






After hiking at the two lakes in the area, we first decided to enjoy a run down towards Auronzo, which was a fun drive down and back up. Then we headed towards Innichen, still trying to see the three peaks, but getting thwarted by the clouds.



Once we crossed the border into Austria, we filled up the car and got a Leberkaes-Sandwich for lunch and continued on towards Lienz and then the Grossglockner. We saw some interesting castles and waterfalls along the way, until we reached Heiligenblut (the southern entrance to the Grossglockner Hochstrasse).


Burg Heinsfeld

Jungfernsprung waterfall

Heading towards the mountains

There are quite a few charging stations just outside and inside the Grossglockner Hochstrasse. As we arrived in Heiligenblut, we met two new 983 Boxster EV test mules (Erlkoenige in German) of about 4 that were testing during that week at the Grossglockner charging up. I parked next to them to take some pictures while my wife chatted with one of their drivers. They found their cars engaging to drive fast, but were commenting on the lack of aural involvement compared to the GT4RS.



Since we arrived just after 3:30pm and the Kaiser Franz Josef Hoehe was closing soon, the toll attendant gave us a rebate (33 Euros instead of the 43 Euros) and told is that we can get a second day for just 16 Euros to come back. One of the Boxsters passed us while we paid the toll for the road, so we caught up to him and saw another Boxster coming towards us. While there was still some camouflage and test bumpers with sensors on the car, you can already see the more muscular look compared to the 981 and 982. The lights seem to look similar to the new design also seen on the new Macan EV. There are no side air intakes anymore, but still large front radiator openings for cooling the batteries. Charging port is in the center back, the rear lights seem to follow the horizontal light bar design, though the lights seem to not be going all the way through (though that could be covered by camouflage). The 3rd brake light follows the 992 double vertical lights.


Note the protrusions on the wheels.




We were not the only ones taking pictures

After a spirited fun lead-follow, the Boxster pulled over and let us pass. So we continued up until we reached another stop to take some pictures of our car and the landscape:


Driving towards heaven!


Driving towards heaven!

Snow walls are getting taller!




Hochtor at over 2500m elevation.

Driving up to the tunnel at Hochtor at over 2500m elevation was a lot of fun, though the high snowbanks were definitely taking away some visibility. We stopped to take some pictures next to the snowplow but the cold temperature (4 degrees C) made us hurry up to get to the other side of the tunnel, where the weather was going to be better.


Tunnelruns in the GT4RS are fun


Sunny Northside!


My idol

Imitating my idol (and no, the shield was not a souvenir)


After taking a short break for souvenir shopping, taking pictures, admiring the views and getting a snack, we headed up to Edelweissspitze, the highest point of the Grossglockner road at over 2570m elevation and a great view of the Austrian alps and the road itself. You reach it by driving several hairpin curves on a narrow cobblestone road. So best to drive it slow and carefully.


Cobblestones!

Edelweissspitze (highest point reached with the car during our trip)


More cobblestones

More cobblestones

More cobblestones

At the top I parked next to a common looking Audi Q7, that however turned out to be another former test car. As it turns out, Porsche was not the only manufacturer doing testing at the pass, but Audi was testing a whole slew of ICE and EV cars and SUVs. The Q7 had important supplies in the back and the drivers who I spoke with said that they were the support vehicle to provide refreshments .


innocuous Q7

Attention Testvehicle! Limited passenger protection, airbags and seatbelts are not according to standards! Check out windshield sticker as well!



E on the plate indicates electric cars (ICE cars have no final letter, unless they are historic cars that is indicated with an H)





Audi doing competitive testing

One of the Audi test cars was a BWM i4 that had two mannequins in the backseat and a laptop on the passenger seat. I assume Audi was doing some competitive testing around how well rear passengers feel when driving fast around hairpins...

For the next two hours we drove several time down to turn 1 and then back up again. Enjoying the almost empty roads, the views and driving this awesome machine.
There were two construction lights where we had to stop. On one stop, a Porsche Cayenne was towing one of the Boxster EVs up the hill. Maybe Porsche was testing a new Option for the Boxster EV: a Cayenne as backup tow vehicle in case you run out of juice on your mountain pass while having fun . You can see the video on Instagram at
Here are more pictures of the GT4RS while we were enjoying the pass:












Since the toll road was closing at 8pm and the sun was starting to set, we finally decided to continue to our hotel for the next 3 nights in Zell am See. For dinner we found another great local restaurant and had a delicious Austrian style dinner.

 

The next morning we decided to head back to the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse to see if we could head to the Franz Joseph Outlook. The weather on the northside was still sunny, but the weather front was definitely pushing northwards.



A lot of people recommend to head to the pass early (like 6am), which is a good recommendation during the high season and on weekends. Since we were driving in May in the middle of the week, we ate a delicious breakfast and headed towards the pass around 9am.

The second day pass was indeed just 16Euros. As the day before, the pass was not very busy, except for a few crazy tourists like us and the Audi, Porsche and also Volkswagen test mules. Driving up the road, we caught up and overtook some Audi SUV test mules where there are overtaking lanes and caught up with a weird looking VW Golf.


A VW Golf test mule (note the sensors in the wheel wells and the sensors around the car)

The Golf pulled over and let us pass, but then was "sitting on our a$$" for the rest of the drive up . We gained elevation quickly since the traffic was very light and caught up to an Audi test mule.


Catching up to the Audi test mule.

The Audi laying some rubber

Driving through snowmelt

Heading into the Hochtor and the fog

As soon as we caught up, the Audi accelerated and stayed ahead of us. So now you have a 3-car train driving spiritedly up towards the Hochtor and then aiming for the south side of the pass. The Audi even left some rubber on the road and didn't really slow down driving through the snow melt. However, once we reached the Hochtor tunnel, visibility dropped precariously, and we slowed down because the south side was deeply enveloped by thick fog. The VW behind me pulled out and returned to the sunny side, while the Audi continued down. We met the VW driver later again and when asked, he told us that he was indeed testing some new suspension components for the Golf. He also had a lot of fun chasing us

We took the right turn towards the Franz Joseph Height, but the visibility got even worse, and we could barely see a car-length ahead of us. Since the point of visiting the Franz Joseph height was to enjoy the view onto the highest mountain in Austria, but the fog covered everything, we decided to pull out at the Glocknerhaus and have a soup for lunch.


The view we were hoping to have...

... and the view we got.

View onto the parking lot at the Glocknerhaus.

What a difference a day can make....

Hoping to leave the fog through the Hochtor tunnel

Once we got back to the north side, the bad weather and fog had started to push a bit further north and the sun was now hiding behind the clouds. We did encounter the Boxster EV from the day before again and pulled over to take some more pictures.


Back to the Fuschlhoehe catching up to a Boxster EV

We meet again

Next, we wanted to head back up to the Edelweissspitze again. On the way there, we met a couple with their new red Spyder RS, so we talked about our cars and trips a bit and took some pictures.






Wing vs ducktail

As we were taking pictures, a group of Porsche test mules (the previous Boxster EV and a new 992.2 GTS) stopped at the parking lot for lunch. One thing that the team has trained for is how quickly they can pull a car cover over a car .



Chatting with the test crew

Covered 992.2 GTS test mule

Which one would you pick?

Afterwards we headed up to the Edelweissspitze and then also visited the Haus Alpine Naturschau museum that hosts some interesting ecological information about the micro climates in high alpine regions and some awesome crystals. The Apfelstrudel was also delicious.


Edelweissspitze

After we finished the dessert, the rainstorm had arrived at the mountain.


The rain arrived horizontally...

Since it was already afternoon, we decided to head back down towards Zell am See, but stopped along the way to give the car a deserved wash after all the mountain adventures in the Dolomites and at the Grossglockner.


Dirty, dirty car

We drove it well

Cleaned up

Ready to get dirty again


We did some sightseeing in Zell am See along the lake and admired the Hundertwasser fountain before heading for a tasty Italian dinner in one of the highly rated pizzerias in town.


Hundertwasserbrunnen

 

Awesome pics, thanks for sharing!

 

On our third day near the Grossglockner, the rain finally made it over the mountains towards Zell am See. So instead of spending time outdoors, we decided to drive some fun road to the Porsche Museum Pfeifhofer in Gmuend. Gmuend is the city where Porsche AG was founded after WW2. The Museum is privately owned (not by Porsche AG) and has a small yet very fine collection.


The route was Zell am See - Maria Alm - Obertauern - Gmuend and then back on the direct way.

We started with the scenic route 164 via Maria Alm driving along the Hochkoenig mountain range towards Bischofshofen where we quickly joined the highway. As quickly as we joined it, we left it to enjoy the twisty road 99 up towards Obertauern. While the drive started out dry, the rain started and intensified as we approached the pass at Obertauern.


Hochkoenig

Maria Alm


While spiritly driving the twisties, I suddenly got the following warning indicator . It appears that the car got hungry and consumed about 2 indicator bars of oil during the first ca. 4000km (2500 miles). Since we did not have an extra liter of oil with us, we postponed the top-up to the next morning.


Oil-thirsty GT4RS

Once we descended down 99 and joined the A10 highway, the rain was pouring. Now the semi-slick tires showed their limits. They work reasonably well in wet and rainy conditions, as long as you stay below 100kph (62mph). Once you go over it, you have to be very careful with standing water and better slow down to avoid aqua planning. I did get into some slight twitching when driving at the highway speed limit and encountered a bit of standing water. I was able to keep the car straight, but my wife definitely noticed.

We reached the museum at lunch time and met some classic Porsches at the museum:


Parking is hard

without...

... and with the 944.

Museum barn.

Rear ends and two wings.

The museum's exhibition is on basically two floors in a former barn (I think they also have a storage garage with more cars that are normally not open to the public except during events). While the exhibition is small, it is very exquisite! Here are some of the cars:


top floor

VW Typ 87 Kommandeurwagen (militarized KdF/Volkswagen)

Gmuend-built early alu-bodied 356

1952 356 Knickscheibe


356 Speedster

356 Carrera 2

919 LeMans race car

906

Once we finished the Museum visit (of course buying some souvenirs too), we drove back to Zell am See. Since the rain was still pouring down and we started to worry about keeping our mileage below the VAT limit, we stayed on the A10 and then took the direct route to Zell am See. The rain was fortunately only intermittent in Zell am See, so we had another nice evening stroll and Austrian-style dinner.

 

I love the 356 Knickscheibe, would love to do a modern Sonderwunsch version on a really basic 911. Did you visit the original design office just down the road?

 

That would be cool! We did drive by, but it was raining hard and we were not really motivated to get out into the rain again.

 

The next day started great, was mid during the day, and ended great in the evening again. The program of the day was to get the oil topped off, drive to a photoshoot with a local photographer and then head to our next goal - Berchtesgaden.



First thing in the morning after another delicious breakfast was to get the oil topped off at the Porsche center in Zell am See. They filled it back up to 3 ticks in the green and left me the remaining oil bottle (and included the nice oil bag in the 48 Euro price for 1 liter of the Mobil C40 GT oil). Thanks and kudos to the team at Porsche Zell am See .




The next appointment was with a local photographer who lived in the area who had seen me drive by and found me on IG to take some pictures. Here are some that we shot while he was shooting and some of his. It was fun and he did a great job. You can find him on IG at @ptrantc if you want to check if he is available.








These were the pictures my wife and I took, the following are Peter's pictures:


Photos by IG ptrantc

Photos by IG ptrantc

Photos by IG ptrantc

Photos by IG ptrantc

Photos by IG ptrantc

Photos by IG ptrantc

Photos by IG ptrantc

Photos by IG ptrantc

Photos by IG ptrantc

Photos by IG ptrantc

Photos by IG ptrantc

Photos by IG ptrantc

Photos by IG ptrantc

Photos by IG ptrantc

During the shoot, we had both rain and sunshine, so we were hoping that driving north would keep us again ahead of the rain. However, as we were driving towards the German border the rain went from trickles to dumping buckets around Reit im Winkel. Our plan was to join route 305, also known as the "Deutsche Alpenstrasse" (German Alpine Road) that stretches from the Bodensee to the Koengissee ,and then follow it to Berchtesgaden. The drive from Reit im Winkel to Ruhpolding was fun, even if the weather was atrocious. Unfortunately, our route was detoured near Ruhpolding, since the road was closed for construction. So we ended up heading to A8 which was a boring 120kph limited stretch of highway with lots of traffic before we took the exit towards Berchtesgaden. On the plus side, the rain stopped, so after we checked into the Hotel Edelweiss, we took a stroll through the old city center and then met Benni, a friend on IG who drives an acid green 991.2 GT3 Touring, to discuss the plans for the next day.


At Hotel Edelweiss (before we knew about the cool car lift, see next post)





Local wildlife

 

In the morning, we enjoyed the delicious breakfast and then went to meet Benni with his acid green GT3 Touring. It is not often you see two acid green Porsche together!






Additionally, his mom joined us with her 991 Targa and her friends in a new to them 997 GTS manual. Our goal was to have a beautiful day of driving around Berchtesgaden and the lakes in Austria nearby. And the weather had cleared, and it was beautiful and sunny! Here is the route we took:


The limited waypoints let me not close the loop at the end back to Berchtesgaden.

First, we started with the Rossfeld-Panoramastrasse, a local toll road that is also hosting a historic hill climb race. The drive was a lot of fun and once you reach the top, you have a beautiful view into the Bavarian and Austrian Alps. Only drawback is, that it is fairly short. However, we had more fun roads ahead of us.






Next, we headed down into Austria, towards our first snack stop at the Hintersee, a quiet, lovely lake. We took a narrow, low-traffic road through the forest. Again, a lot of fun, but you had to be ready for oncoming traffic, wildlife and slower traffic.





From there, we decided to head for lunch at the Fuschlsee. Since it was a beautiful day, there was quite a crowd at the lake, and some cool cars in the parking lot including a classic Mercedes bus and a Porsche 356 Speedster.



Fuschlsee

A classic Mercedes bus

Porsche 356 Speedster.

Porsche 356 Speedster. Roof looks more complicated than the Sypder RS roof

A European Delivery tip: Some parking lots automatically register your car based on the license plate and you have to pay by entering your plate before driving out. The problem is that the system does not register European Delivery plates as German, but as "Sonstiges" (Other). It took us a while to figure it out!

After the delicious lunch, we continued driving around several of the lakes in the area, Mondsee, St. Wolfgangsee, and Attersee. At some point, Benni had to leave us for another appointment, and we continued with 3 cars to Hallstatt. While the earlier lakes had mostly local German and Austrian visitors, Hallstatt was a much more international tourist location, with a lot of South and East Asian visitors. It is very picturesque and we enjoyed the lake and a delicious dessert (for me an Apfelstrudel mit Vanilleeis).










After Hallstatt, we drove back to Berchtesgaden over scenic side roads. One scare we had was on the road back towards Berchtesgaden, there was a woman driving on the the wrong side of the road heading straight towards us. Fortunately, she just realized that she was heading towards imminent doom and pulled over into her lane at the last moment (and just drove on). Not sure if she was not used to driving on the right side of the road or if she was on her phone.



We concluded an awesome day with newly made friends and some drinks at the rooftop restaurant at the Hotel Edelweiss.

 

Amazing photos. Austria looks stunning.

 

man what a thread

 

Fortunately, the weather held the next day. Our plan was to visit the Koenigssee area in the morning, after enjoying the breakfast and the roof spa at the hotel, and then start our drive back towards Switzerland and ultimately Sindelfingen. First stop would be the Hans-Peter Porsche Traumwerk, a museum famous for its extensive tin toy collection and large model train set and some Porsches. After that, we wanted to get towards the Chiemsee so we could explore it on the day after.



First, we took the car lift out of the Hotel parking garage. You can see a video on my IG at
Koenigssee was a mixed experience. Germans do not know how to organize parking if there is a lot of cars arriving and not a lot of parking. Once we finally found parking on the grass, some of the parking meters did not work. Also, the area between the parking spot and the lake was overly touristy, a weird mix of Bavarian kitsch and Romy Schneider nostalgia (does anyone still know who she is?). The lake was beautiful. Unfortunately, it was very busy too, so the lines to get tickets for the boat rides and then waiting for the boat ride would have taken several hours, so we decided to head back to the car and drive towards the museum.


Koenigssee

Koenigssee

Koenigssee

Picture taken by the carspotter

When we came back to the parking lot, we met a local carspotter who was busy taking some pictures. I guess an acid green GT4RS is not very stealth . Getting out of the parking lot was about as difficult as finding a parking lot. My wife got out of the car and directed traffic for about 10 minutes (getting thanks from the people looking for parking, since she directed them to where there was still parking available, something an employee should be doing), before I (and several other cars) was finally able to leave the parking lot.

The drive towards the Traumwerk was fun, less traffic, some GT3s coming our way, waving at each other. And unlike Koenigssee, the parking at the museum was no problem at all. We signed up for a guided tour and then had a delicious lunch in the garden of the museum, watching the kids play and a little train giving the kids ride around the premises. The guided tour was fun. The guide was knowledgeable, funny and full of interesting anecdotes about the museum, H.P. Porsche, the collection. The museum had two special exhibits celebrating the 1960s (including some special early 911s owned by the Porsche family) and 95 years of the Gaisberg hill climb race with some very cool Porsche and Alfa and other hill climb race cars and stories about the men and women racing them.



Porsche family owned 911

Porsche family owned 911

Mercedes SL 300 Gullwing

Jaguar E-Type

VW Love Bus

550 Spyder

718 WRS Spyder

906 Carrera GTS

906 Carrera GTS

906 Carrera GTS

909 BergSpyder

2016 Boxster BergSpyder (one of one)

910 BergSpyder

Abarth SP2000 race car

Abarth SP2000 race car

Alfa Giulietta Zagato

Bugatti

The main exhibits feature a model train set and mechanical metal/tin toys. One floor of the museum is dedicated to a large HO scale model railroad set that is a marvel of engineering and features some iconic landscapes of Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. It runs through a daily cycle in about 20 minutes, including night lights, fireworks, etc. The mechanical metal toys feature some of the rarest and most iconic toys from the late 1800s into the 1930s.



One of the many cool "tin" toys

The museum is fun. However, we did not get rid of the feeling that H.P. Porsche's wife got fed up with all the toys and huge stuffed animals and model trainsets and so he built the museum far outside of the city in an area where nobody would stop by by accident .
After spending several hours at the museum, I continued our drive staying off the highway and taking local roads to Chiemsee and finally our hotel for the night, an old Landgasthof where we had another delicious dinner and enjoyed their pool.


Overlooking Chiemsee

At the Landgasthof

 

One of the reasons why we like to stay at a Landgasthof is that they often serve delicious local food. And this Landgasthof did not disappoint. After a delicious breakfast, we headed to Chiemsee to explore the two major islands and visit King Ludwig's attempt to recreate the Versailles palace in Schloss Herrenchiemsee. Then we wanted to head back towards the Alpen Hochstrasse, along the Schliersee and then heading to Tegernsee.



When we arrived at the parking lot for the harbor, an employee jumped onto his bicycle and asked us to follow him. It turns out that they have a special spot for sports cars to park right next to the lake. We parked together with a rally ready Toyota GR Yaris and a couple of Lotus (Lotuses? Loti?).






We bought our tickets to visit Herrenchiemsee and Frauenchiemsee and boarded an over 100 year old paddle wheeler.





Herrenchiemsee was impressive. Especially since the Bavarian king who also built Neuschwanstein and was a big fan of the French King Luis XIV (the "sun king"), wanted to recreate Versailles but 25% larger and almost went bankrupt. That's why only a part of the castle is actually completed. You can stroll on the island by yourself, but you have to take a guided tour inside the castle and are not allowed to take pictures. The castle also has a restaurant with a nice outdoors terrasse where we shared an ice cream. The island also is home to a former monastery, that served as the founding meeting for the German constitution after WW2.







After taking another boat ride, we reached the Frauenchiemsee island, that is much smaller, hosted a nunnery and now has several restaurants and art shops. After having a late lunch and exploring the island, we took the boat back and continued our drive.



We hit the highway and got into a traffic jam caused by a pretty bad accident of a several cars pile-up. One thing you should learn about driving in Germany and in Europe in general is that if you are in a traffic jam, you are supposed to pull over to the right or left shoulder to leave a pathway in the middle of the road for any emergency vehicles to pass through. Something we should learn to adopt here in the US as well...

Once we reached our exit, we left the highway and started driving south towards road 307 and Bayrischzell. Unfortunately, this was another case where the road was closed due to road construction (3rd time now), so we had to detour around the North before we could reach first Schliersee and then Tegernsee, where we checked into our hotel. This hotel showed its age a bit but had good underground parking and a great view of the lake. We went into town for dinner in a beer garden and had some delicious German food (and it was still asparagus season).

 

Next day, we were heading to Garmisch-Patenkirchen taking the scenic route of course and stopping along the way for some culinary and cultural experiences:



First, we headed up the Wallberg Panorama Strasse at the South end of the Tegernsee (5 Euro fee) to enjoy the view.






As we were taking pictures, the rain started. So we headed back down and towards the Sylvenstein lake on the B307 (Deutsche Alpenstrasse) and entered the Wallgau Mautstrasse (toll road) that is part of the Bavarian State Forest system.





Once we reached Wallgau, we decided against the direct route towards Garmisch and instead drove to Walchensee and Kochelsee. Since it was raining, we did not take pictures but the road along the lakes and then cross from Walchen lake to Kochel lake is a fun road.
After that we wanted to find some lunch at the Staffelsee, but the lake restaurants were all closed (and it rained even heavier), so we decided to continue to the Ettal Abbey famous for its baroque church, a model cheese making facility and good beer.


First we stopped at the cheese making facility...

... and ate some cake for lunch (and a delicious radler beer)


Ettal Abbey

Ettal Abbey Church

Ettal Abbey Church ceiling

We also bought some small souvenirs (including some more Radler for an evening drink) and finally headed to Garmisch. We chose the Riessersee hotel a bit outside of Garmisch, overlooking the village and located at a small lake and the 1936 Olympic Bobsled run. The road to the hotel up the hill, was in pretty bad shape due to winter damage and smaller slides, so it was not as fun as the map indicated. But the front axle lift helped. Where the front axle lift did not help was the underground garage. We tried to get down, but my wife, who was checking for the potential of scraping, stopped me before I scraped. So we parked outside.



Parking outside

The highest mountain of Germany is hidden somewhere up there...

Riessersee


Fortunately, the rain had stopped, and we hoped for better weather for the next day. We ended this day with a walk and a delicious buffet for dinner at the hotel.

 

Next day, the weather was slightly better (it was not constantly raining and there were sunbreaks through the clouds). Thus, we decided to head up to the Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany, and after that circumnavigating the mountain and explore some more fun roads in both Germany and Austria.



We parked at the bottom of the cable car in Eibsee and took the cog railroad up, that runs for half the time through the mountain in a tunnel, and then comes out at the "ski resort" area. There was still a lot of snow, but the lifts were closed for the season, the snow bullies were mainly used to do maintenance on the lifts.




View from the final cog railroad station

After we played a bit in the snow, we took the cable car up to the top. The top was shrouded in fog, so there was no view to be had. But it is still a cool place to hang out, since it has actually three cable cars meeting there: The one we came up, one coming up from Austria and the modern one that heads down to Eibsee and that we were planning on taking down. It also has a restaurant where we had a delicious lunch, looking at the view (mainly fog). The weather was switching between fog, rain, snow, rain again and mostly fog. Heading down in the cable car was cool, since we basically first were flying through fog without any reference point until we broke out of the fog and saw the beautiful landscape.



Eibsee from the gondola.

Find the GT4RS

Find the cable car

Since we had a sunbreak, we walked along the Eibsee for a bit, before we headed back to the car and continued our drive around the mountain range. Our first goal was a gas station in Austria, since the gas is about 20-25c per liter cheaper (which makes a difference if you have to fill up 50 liters). After that, we headed to the Fernpass, that could be a fun pass to drive, but unfortunately was pretty busy with slow moving traffic.

The weather was switching between rain and sunshine which lead to some fun driving characteristics around turns . After Telfs, we decided to head up towards Platzl, which was a fun twisty road and a nice drive through some tree lined roads.




Once we reentered Germany and the North side of the mountains, the rain was getting stronger again. So we headed back to our hotel, stopping and taking some pictures when the rainbow came out.



We had another great dinner at the Restaurant next to the Riessersee, and planned the trip for the next day which was going to be one of our longest driving day of the trip.