Via Romea Germanica Day 54: Oberammergau - Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Heut' kommt der Hans zu mir, 
freut sich die Lies. 
Ob er aber über Oberammergau, 
oder aber über Unterammergau, 
oder aber überhaupt nicht kommt, 
das ist net g'wiß! 

- Traditional German tongue-twister (untranslatable)

Set off from Oberammergau this morning in company! From here up to the Italian border, we will be a group of four. In Oberammergau we reconstructed the international group that walked the Camino Portugues from Porto to Santiago together in 2019: me (from Canada/Italy), my father (from England/Canada/Chile), Rossana (from Chile) and Annette (from Germany). 

We had planned to hike together in Germany, in the Neckar Valley, in 2020, but because of the pandemic, it never happened. So here we are, all finally together again!

Some company, at last; and a sunny day, too! We set off along the trail out of Oberammergau up the valley and past the Ettal Mühle, an old mill with a waterwheel, to the monastery of Kloster Ettal.

Kloster Ettal was founded in 1330 and rebuilt in Baroque style after it burnt down in 1744, to plans by Enrico Zucalli, a Swiss-Italian architect who had worked with Bernini. One of the most important monasteries in the Alps, it was home to the Ritterakademie, or Knights' Academy. 

We stopped at the information office and souvenir shop by the church to ask for a pilgrim stamp, and were rewarded with free bottles of cold, fizzy mineral water! Much appreciated, as the day was already growing warm. Such a change from the past few days of wind and rain! 

After viewing the church and taking a break at the café, we carried on through the village of Ettal and into the trees. A steep slope on a gravel road, following the Via Crucis in reverse, brought us down into the town of Obernau, where we bought delicious farm-fresh strawberries from a kiosk and devoured them in the shade of a bus shelter. 

We were now about halfway, 11 kilometres into the day's walk. We continued along the main road through the town of Oberau, crossed the railroad tracks, where we had some excitement as our group got separated and my dad almost got stuck between the barriers when they suddenly went down due to an arriving train! Then we crossed a bridge over the Loisach river and followed a winding bicycle path through Alpine meadows, heading toward the snowy mountains ahead. Soon we could clearly see the peak of Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze, towering before us at 2962 metres high. 

We stopped on a bench in the shade for a lunch break and then continued along this path, frequented by plenty of cyclists and other walkers on this holiday long weekend. We spoke to two men walking from Munich to Venice, and a group of hikers walking a sort of marathon, 40 kilometres in a single day! We were impressed by what they were doing, and they were equally impressed by our mission of walking to Italy!

The views were spectacular, but it was hot the paved cycling trail in the sun and we were glad when, after a few ups and downs and round some bends, Garmisch-Partenkirchen finally came in view. Though we still had some way to go, across town to our guesthouse, with of course a stop at the tourist information office to get our pilgrim credentials stamped with the official stamp of the Via Romea Germanica.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen 

Garmisch (in the west) and Partenkirchen (in the east) were separate towns for many centuries, and still maintain quite separate identities. Partenkirchen originated as the Roman town of Partanum,  first mentioned in A.D. 15, on the Roman road and trade route between Venice and Augsburg, which now corresponds to its main street, Ludwigsstrasse - and to the Via Romea Germanica. While Garmisch was first mentioned some 800 years later as Germaneskau ("German District"), suggesting that a Teutonic tribe had taken up settlement in the western end of the valley.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen is the hometown of composer Richard Strauss, and of Michael Ende, author of fantasy fiction best-known for The Never-ending Story.

Guesthouse Geyer, which offers a pilgrim discount and is the most economical option in this touristy town, is some way off the trail in the centre of Garmisch. When we had figured out how to get in (the GPS navigator took us to the back door instead of the front) and had time to shower and recover from the day's exertions, we went out for beer and schnitzel (or vegetable curry, in my case) at a nearby restaurant, where a large table was occupied by the Canadian in-line hockey team! There's an international in-line hockey tournament going on in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a renowned centre for winter sports which hosted the winter Olympics in 1936. 

Beer from the monastery we visited in the morning 

Schnitzel, Weiner Art (Viennese style)

Oberammergau - Garmisch-Partenkirchen 24 km