| August 22 The next morning, we awoke to what would turn out to be the best frühstück (breakfast) of the trip. Almost all accomodations include breakfast as part of the price, usually a "continental breakfast" of rolls, jams, and coffee. The Edelweiß had that, plus cereal, sliced meat, cheeses, and juices. |
| Well rested and fed, we struck out for another day of adventure. The autobahn drives along the shores of Chiemsee, a large lake with a castle and abbey on islands. We'd visited them on our first "excursion" to Europe (courtesy of Uncle Sam) so we bypassed them on this journey. |
 Just beyond Chiemsee, the autobahn splits – we took the southern branch which leads into Austria. The road follows the Inn river as it passes through the mountains. The Austrians have planted trees and bushes on both sides of the autobahn, which does a great job of shielding the residents from pollution and noise – and also shields the view from the drivers. We soon got tired of bushes, and exited the autobahn to drive on the parallel secondary road. |
  One of the historic crossing points over the Inn is Innsbruck – literally "Inn Bridge." Many of you will remember Innsbruck for the Winter Olympics (twice, actually). Innsbruck also has many interesting structures and museums and was the perfect place for lunch. We even found a few interesting souvenirs there and took our first "vertical hike" of the vacation, up the city hall tower.
We left Innsbruck with the ultimate goal of spending the night near the famous castles of Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria. We intended to follow a secondary road but somehow got on a tertiary (or less) road that did provide some marvelous scenery. |
 We crossed the German border at the Bavarian town of
Mittenwald. This is one of the towns that you tour Bavaria to find. It is small, picturesque, clean, accomodating to tourists, and has its own brewery! Oh, and parking is relatively easy to find. After a nice walk through town and a refreshing beverage, we drove on to
Garmisch-Partenkirchen. This is another beautiful town, but you must take more time to see it because it is much bigger. We opted to continue our journey. |
| The quickest route from Garmisch to our evening's destination, Füssen, is back through Austria. So, off we went, crossing the border for the third and fourth times today. The road goes right by the Zugspitze, which at 2968 meters high is a dramatic sight (also ... a dramatic site!). Evening found us in a gasthof just east of
Füssen, with a view of Neuschwanstein outside our window ... but that's tomorrow's story.
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