Visiting with Wilfried and Renate

Sunday, September 22, 2013

When we reached Burghausen, we visited Wilfried and Renate at their home and reminisced about his days at Hawthorne High School. We then toured the famous burg, which is the longest in Europe. Here we are walking up the steep hill and along the castle wall to get inside. We had a wonderful dinner with them at a restaurant across the Salzach River.

We started the day looking at beautiful views as we packed the car at our Gasthaus.

The Air bnb host, Viktor, came out to say goodbye and took this photo. We also took a photo in a different direction to show how special our location was.

This was our first morning without our own kitchen and foods for breakfast, so we scooted off to Berchtesgaden to find some coffee and Frühstück. It was a spectacular Sunday morning, and when we got into town we were determined to find a free parking spot on the street. We finally did, and enjoyed the  beautiful surrounding views and buildings as we walked into the town square.

We were some of the first people there, knowing that later this location would be jammed with people. It was not so early for those other people you see there to be drinking beer! We had coffee, eggs, and bread, and they had beer. Both of our tables had big trouble with wasps. A guy at the other table put honey out, hoping, we guessed, that wasps would focus on the honey and not bother them. Wrong. The wasps got twice as worse for them, but relieved us!

As with so many buildings in Austria and Germany, there were decorated walls, called Lüftlmalerei. Janet remarked that if painting these scenes on buildings was your profession, you'd never fear unemployment.

These are the Church of St Peter and St John, and the King's Castle. Those church towers are from the 13th century, The schloss on the right used to be a monastery, but the ruling Wittelsbach family took it over in 1810 and used it as a "vacation" residence.We attempted to tour the schloss, but they weren't going to be ready for an English tour for more than an hour, so we skipped it.

We did go into the church and got to listen for a while to these teenagers practicing their songs for an upcoming baptism. We saw the relatives waiting out in the square, as well as the baby, and all were wearing their best Bavarian Os. This was fun to see, but other musical fun in Berchtesgaden was coming.

On our stroll back to the square where we'd had breakfast, we passed by a biergarten that was half full of people drinking nice tall cold ones. We were puzzled by this early-Sunday-morning drinking, but hey, this was Bavaria! We learned later from Wilfried that this practice is called Frühschoppen (translated to mean morning drink of beer), whereby the men drink after church (and eat Weißwurst) while the women go home and prepare the big Sunday meal.

When we arrived back in the square, we saw this little band forming. By now, the square was crowded, and our cafe where we'd eaten nearly alone, was full. Everyone seemed to be wearing dirndls, lederhosen, and Alpine hats, which gave it a special feel.

We didn't want to miss the band performance, and I was coveting a decadent pastry, so we decided to find a table, order, and enjoy the music. I savored this Sacher Torte, and "savor" is an understatement! MMMM Janet had more coffee. The music was typical Bavarian folk music, or so it sounded to us, and we loved it.

What is this picture? It shows the band's beers at their feet! After the band's first song, we noticed a waitress delivering beers to nearly everyone in the group. It cracked us up, coming just after we wondered why so many people were drinking on a Sunday morning.

We finally decided we'd better push on. We departed Berchtesgaden for a driving loop we'd read about in our tour guide - the Rossfeld-Ringstrasse. It headed off to the east, and up up up to Obersalzberg, where Hitler had his Burghof residence. He spent so much time there, it was his political seat second only to Berlin. It was destroyed at the end of WWII, and became a U.S.military vacation spot, with the General Walker Hotel. When the U.S. turned it over to Germany in 1996, they converted it into Dokumentation Obersalzberg, a museum of the Nazi dictatorship and contemporary history. We passed it by and continued up up up until we heard cow bells.

We pulled off and walked over to see and listen to the cows. It was completely quiet. The only car to come along parked behind us so they could go look at whatever it was WE were looking at!

I took a telephoto shot of Kelsteinhaus, better known to Americans as Hitler's Eagle's Nest. In reality, Hitler almost never went there, preferring his Burghof farther down the mountain. Tourists can still see the bunkers, meant to protect Hitler in case of attack, which extend clear down to Obersalzberg.

Once we reached the summit, we were right at the border of Austria. The views were stunning, looking in one direction (W) down to Berchtesgaden, one direction (N) toward Salzburg, and the direction in this photo, which is to the SE up the Salzach River valley.

We saw a placard telling how the final scene from Sound of Music was filmed right there near this summit. This photo is looking toward Berchtesgaden.

Just one more photo from this incredible spot in the Alps. We did see quite a few cyclists, which I would imagine is a popular challenge ride with all the climbing and descents. We then went down down down to Oberau, where they had just finished a cow parade. We saw lots of spectators and decorated cows, but didn't stop.

Once down to the valley, we headed toward Salzburg and the autobahn. To the north of the city, we drove off toward Burghausen to see Wiff and Renate. It was tough to follow my printed directions because the signs did not show highway numbers or road names (only destinations). Eventually, I made a wrong turn and realized it when we crossed the Salzach River back into Germany. But it was not a problem since we needed only to go north to Burghausen. My navigator sitting next to me got us to Burghausen and back across the river, and soon we drove up to Wiff's home. Janet was pretty tense because she had not been sure where we were or what we needed to do, whereas I had a map in my head having researched all this on the Internet. She later teased me because I was short with her when she read me directions for places we had already passed by.

But we made it, and we loved seeing Wilfried and Renate and their home that they designed. We sat at their table and talked about HHS and everything else. Eventually, we left with Wiff to check into our Gasthof, and to tour the castle.

This fortress, Germany's largest, was begun in 1253. Wiff said how they kept adding new sections every century or so, and that meant new gates and moats with each addition.

This is the back side, which faces a lake, Wöhrsee. The views were fabulous. You could even see the home where Wiff and Renate used to live before moving across the river to Austria because land was less expensive. 

Here's a view back down to the old Burghuasen village center, where our hotel was. That's Austria across the river. Wiff told us about how many castle buildings have been converted into condos, and eventually we saw his examples.

Another gate inside the fortress, which was added in 1523 based on what is written over the arch. The blue/white flag on the left is the Bavarian flag.

We walked back down to the river. See the red and white flag? That's the entrance to Austria. See the yellowish building behind the building with the red roof? That's where Wiff and Renate treated us to a wonderful dinner. After this bridge photo, we got our car and drove back to get Renate, and then drove in both cars to the restaurant.

Wiff and I ordered Krenhaxen, a Bavarian specialty. It's a large roasted pork still on the bone, and was yummy. We had a good conversation, and it impressed me how Janet was so empathetic to Renate's reasons for stress and her insomnia. Janet seemed to say the very things that made Renate feel better. You could see her light up that someone finally understood her difficulties.

When we departed and said goodbye, we had no idea that was the last we would see of Renate. We thought she was coming with us to Oktoberfest the next day, and even if not that, with us to Salzburg the day after that. Unfortunately, she could not make either one for personal reasons.

We drove 100 meters or so across the bridge in the photo above, and were at our hotel for the night. The next day was going to be Oktoberfest!