We checked out of the hotel in Salzburg after noticing that the breakfast that was included in our room fee only went until 10am on weekdays, and 11am on weekends. It’s tough to keep track of time and days of the week while on vacation! Good problems to have though.
Due to the lack of coffee (always a scary place for me to be) we decided to hit the road and keep our eyes peeled for a cafe along the way, but agreed to get away from the busy area of Salzburg first. Keith did the road plan the night before on Google maps. He really wanted to do the road up to Obersalzberg (the Eagle’s Nest area) AGAIN. Being a loving and supportive wife, I agreed to the plan. On the way, we did spot an adorable little local cafe where we had a coffee and a sandwich. Then we made our way up the mountain again.
From Obersalzberg we went to Berchtesgaden and then many, many other small towns along the way. Keith was in his glory! Side note: I’ve never seen him keep both hands on the steering wheel so much. Let’s just say these roads require full concentration! We stumbled across another toll road. Turns out toll road = fun twisty road. The tollbooth attendant was helpful & gave us a few directions before setting us free. We stopped in Thurnbichl at a cute little Cafe for lunch. We shared a flammkuchen (flatbread-ish / pizza-ish) and a bruschetta. We sat on the patio and enjoyed the sun. We got back in the car, then at Walchsee we spotted a large building with stainless steel tanks outside. Our first thought: brewery! Keith did a U-turn down the road. When we went inside we got confused as it looked like a grocery store. I spotted some beer taps and a small bar around the corner, turns out the vessels were there because it was a cheese factory, not a brewery. Oops! We did manage to sample a small pour from a local brewer before hitting the road.
More scenic and twisty roads later, we did find a real brewery in Oberaudorf that had a self-serve tap. We didn’t stay longer than the taster as we were starting to realize that all the side route twisty roads had gobbled up a bunch of time, and we were hoping to get to the Airbnb stop before dark.
We ended up hitting some busy traffic that was likely rush hour traffic, so we decided it was worth stopping for supper before checking into our room. Peissenberg had a beer garden (sort of off the beaten path) but it was open, we were the first customers of the day/dinner time. The food was good and it was quick. That’s something we have really noticed here food comes within ten minutes at any restaurant. Pretty sure I’ve said “wow” every time our food arrives due to the speed. Keith and I both chose Currywurst, he had the large with two sausages and I had the single. It’s was tasty and did the trick to keep us fuelled.
We pulled into Pfronten shortly after sunset, the Airbnb was one of the fancier listings we had selected, the room was great and the building was set up with a shared kitchen and lounging area on the main floor. They had a karma bar (watched by a security camera as well) where we could select a snack and or drink then pay at a self serve kiosk. It was perfect as we didn’t want to venture out of the room again. Keith and I chatted with a few people that passed through. Keith had settled in at the table to write some of the blog, but we needed up chatting with an elderly couple. The wife was lovely and had some helpful suggestions on which route to take to our next stop. The husband was…well let’s be PC and call him a grumpy old man. He was trying to tell us were we “should have gone” on the route we had just taken. It turned out the stop he was trying to describe was The Eagle’s Nest that we had been to. Then he started to question why we were going into the Black Forest. We tried to explain that we wanted to explore Germany as we had never been here before. The let us KNOW that we should have just gone to Italy as it’s better. (insert eye-roll). We eventually managed to get the old fellow to stop talking so that we could make an exit to our room. I’ll have to say this was the first person we met that didn’t seem to be an over the top friendly person. We had someone joke that it was because the unfriendly ones can’t speak English, but I really don’t think that is the case. We’ve had a blast and met some wonderful people so far.
Part of the room fee included a Muesli breakfast and coffee in the shared space on the main floor. We didn’t run into Mr Grumpypants, so had a good start to the day. Our first stop was in Fredrichschafener which has a very large lake. The lake, Obersee Bodensee has Germany, Austria, and Switzerland along its shores. We made a historical landmark our destination, Schlossstag and walked along the path that edges a castle. We wandered up to the castle: Schloss Fredrichshafen. The just happened to be a winery in on side of the castle (sadly, it was closed) but the winery had a vending machine! For wine! I had to make a purchase, it’s such a novelty to see alcohol that isn’t entirely under lock and key.
I found a cool looking place for lunch Mittelaltertaverne Drachenfeuer (translates to medieval tavern dragon fire). It had great ambience with some genuinely old decor and other items that were tastefully done. The food was great!
We wandered through the town afterwards and enjoyed the sights.
Next stop was Triberger Wasserfälle (waterfall). Keith played around with some photography, I made sure to snap a photo of the photographer. We wandered down the walkway beside the falls and noticed a sign for a cafe in town. We stopped for a quick espresso and then did the 900m elevation gain back up to where we had parked the car. Did I mention that we had to pay for parking at the waterfall, and pay to enter the trail to the waterfall? Seems like all the parking fees are to try to encourage people to use the train system instead, but there are also times where in a remote location like this, it’s just a cash grab. We paid though, no need for tickets while we are visiting!
After leaving the waterfall, we stopped at a store & bought a cuckoo clock. We had to! We forgot to take a picture but here’s one we found online.
We checked into our pretty darn swanky Airbnb room, then set out to find the local brewery for supper.
Turm-Bräu brewery was great and had excellent German food. We chilled out in the room for a while afterwards, no big shinanagins today!
Check out was 10am, and I didn’t remember that until about 9:30am as Keith and I were having coffee. We hadn’t spent much time in the room so the pack up was quick & the owners were waiting for the parking spot as we pulled out at 10am on the dot.
The plan was to get to Stuttgart for the evening, we met a fellow traveller a couple years ago while camping near Jasper and knew he lived relatively close to Stuttgart. We made plans to meet him in the afternoon so we went to a castle for the morning. Hohenzollern Castle is privately owned by Prussian royalty, it is still used to host private events on occasion.
We had a quick refreshment in the biergarten and a couple slices of cake for breakfast (seems to be standard around here) then set out for Karlshöhe to meet Juilian. Juilian was a great tour guide, and showed us around the city. Its design was done by the free masons after the city was bombed in WWII. The streets all fan out from the starting point of Karlsruhe Palace.
We had a great visit with Juilian and decided to head out towards Stuttgart around 6pm. Parking right in the heart of the city was tricky. We had the mildly terrifying experience of driving beside a train. But we survived and found our last quaint Airbnb without an issue. I’ll let Keith fill in the remaining details on Stuttgart in the next post.
Keith and Leah's travel on 2 wheels 