Info: The German version is set in the expandable segments at the end of each “chapter”. / Die deutsche Version ist in den ausklappbaren Segmenten am Ende jedes “Kapitels” zu finden.

Short: I quickly present my three day trip to the German South. I give a few pointers to what I found and tips for readers that look to travel a similar route.

After handing in my masters thesis and finishing my studies, I finally found some time for my first “real” multi-week vacation in ten years!

I car-napped my mothers relatively small Seat, crammed a small mattress in the back and drove off. This might sound spontanous and it was. Personally, I am quite the intuitve person and I tried to embrace this side of me for my vacation. I would only recommend this to you, if you feel like your plans often have you stressed instead of comforted, to be OK improvising.

Especially for vacations I myself don’t really understand the level of planing many of my friends would pour into their vacation. I found these plans often to be stressful and ill informed of the small inconveniances that arise in the moment. So when traveling alone, I made a habbit of planning as little as possible.

So for those that can’t help but plan, or those that are interested in the things that they should foresee when they just wing it for themselves, heres the story of the first road trip I went on:

#1 Brombachsee - lake

Because of the spontanous nature of my trip, I can’t tell you where exactly I stopped at the Brombachsee. Trying to find it out from the pictures I took, I saw that the lake also has a FKK beach area. (FKK stands for “Freikörperkultur” and means that there you are allowed to walk around and bathe naked. This is not uncommon for German bathing areas but often interesting for foreigners. However please don’t be weird about it.) So I marked that beach instead.

Around the lake there are nice asphalt roads for skating and bike rides. You can also rent rikshas by the hour to have a trip around the lake on these roads. Other activities such as beach volleyball, SUP rental, boat rides, and the like are also available. If you have more time there, all those activities seemed promising, but I had to keep going, as I had an appointment with a longtime friend of mine in Ulm.

#2 Ulm - city

I had to keep going, as I was due to meet an old time friend in Ulm. I had yet to visit the city glued to the border between two south-German states Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg. Visiting a friend who had moved there for work made for a handy combination. Knowing locals often helps, and so he recommended me a free parking spot resonably close to the center (used as marked location on the map below). I headed of to the city and was pleasantly surprised by the nice walk ways and biking lanes along the river Donau. (Sidenote: Swiss biking friends repeatedly told me German biking lanes are amazing. I believe they are municipal duty and seeing as southern municipalities tend to be wealthier, I’m unsure if this applies to the whole of Germany, however.)

I walked through the beautiful old inner city close to the cathedral (I believe there was a cathedran underneath all the scaffolding). I ate in an italian restaurant  ( “Spress” https://goo.gl/maps/SVoYDBDFVNgZ8Hmv7) at the minster square. By the recommendation of the waiter, I tried a salted beer “Messina”. Not necessarily for everyone, and I might be ‘everyone’ in this case.

After spending the rest of day at the living community of my friend, we went swimming in the early morning of the next day. The “Donaubad” open-air pool is quite nice and has reduced entry fees for students. After the swim, I had to get on the road again, headed for my next stop: “Zugspitze”.

#3 Zugspitze (mountain)

The trip towards the Zugspitze was relatively uneventful. An interesting sidenote could be, that the German highway system doesn’t really have the best diagonal connections, which is why the route took be through Austria approaching the tallest German mountain from the west. The European Union being the nice thing that it is, there really was not much more to it than driving a little slower for about an hour.

When you approach the general area around the Zugspitze you quickly sense the typical ‘touristy’ flair of regions that have people come visit for their vacation from all over. It does make sense, seeing the imposing and beautiful mountains. But it does make for difficult parking. I followed the only road approaching the “Eibsee” lake just beneath the Zugspitze and only found payed parking. Getting “up there” (9XXm above sea level to 2970m) really only has one option for people like me. The 63€ ticket including on trip up, unlimited trips between the two stations atop the Zugspitze, and one trip down. For up and down you can either take a cable car (this is the longest cable car I have ever seen) or cogwheel train. I took the cable car on my way up (timelapse of the ascend below) and the train down. Both had their nice aspects, however I personally felt that the train is not a ‘must’.

Ontop of the Zugspitze you can spend your time, theres a look-out platform (for me, sadly, there was clouds blocking the view toward Germany – so tell me if that view is nice too), a restaurant (which is a bit pricey), and a brief exhibition on the construction of the cogwheel train (I enjoyed it). You can head down to the Zugspitz’ Glacier using a second cable car (those rides you can take as often as you like). Seeing as I went up there at the beginning of June there was visible spots of rock and sand in between the patches of snow. I imagine that this used to be covered entierly even during summer, not that long ago. Down there there is a German science station (not open for visitors) and a bar/restaurant. You can hike about, visit an old chapel, and there were small sledges that you could sled with (an odd feeling, having been to the open-air pool that same day).

I took the cogwheel train back to Eibsee lake and was able to get one decent picture of the lake below (most of the time, trees blocked the view), shown below. After reaching the valley again, and before heading of to find a spot for the night, I grabbed my bathing trunks and went for a QUICK dip in the Eibsee lake. It was insanely cold and the sharp pebbles – slippery because of a thin mossy layer – made me regret not bringing beach slippers, but the water was cristal clear and after getting out again I felt great.

I headed off to look for a parking spot to sleep and found one for hikers nearby (I don’t remember the name of the village). I was awake after only 3 hours, as my back painfully reminded me, that I did not pack anough cushioning. After a 90 minute night walk with only a small flash light and the light of a clear sky, I was exhausted enough to sleep regardless.

#4 Starnberger See (lake) and the Buchheim Museum for Phantasy and Creativity

Come early morning I was on the road again. I needed to get back to Bamberg but wanted to take a small detour first. When looking at the map I saw that the well-known lake “Starnberger See" was on my route back, and since I hadn’t seen it yet, I looked for something to do there. I found recommendations for the Buchheim Museum of Phantasy/Creativity in Bernried am Starnberger See. So I headed there. Bernried am Starnberger See is a big village next to the lake and the Buchheim Museum – conveniently – has a free parking lot for visitors just outside of the village proper. I visited the museum (10€ normal entry – 5€ student entry) which I found quite nice. There are no set paths through the museum but I recommend working yourself up from the first floor, then going to the basement, then the ground floor, and then the park area (this is quite extensive and relaxing). As I find myself needing breaks from museum tours after a while, I locked my valuables in the museum lockers and took just my bathing utensils and walked down to the lake, to have a swim and then finish my tour. The museum also has clean toilets (nice when you are road triping with just a car).

The Starnberger See also has stellar water and there are loads of tourist activities around the lake. I just looked for – and quickly found – a small area of pebble beach for my own. This lake was not as cold as the Eibsee and so I could actually swim for a bit. The lake does however carry surprising currents at time. I was told in the deeper areas this can be dangerous. In the shallow area close to the shore, however, this is mostly peculiar in the sense, that you will swim in luke warm water one moment, in rather frosty water in the next.

After my brief stay at the Starnberger See I headed back north. I can recomment avoiding the Munich metropolitan traffic. This recommendation stems from me taking 40 minutes on the inner Munich ring road.

And after a small stop at my parents house to fit the car with 4 more blankets to cushion my future endeavors, I arrived in Bamberg on June 3rd. A free parking spot I frequent when I have to park in Bamberg and don’t mind the small walk to the city center is the road marked below.

Thank you for your reading, and have a good time!