June 25, 2012 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN
Mountain resort town in southern Germnay near Germany's highest mountains Zugspitze at 2962m (9714ft).
Garmisch (in the west) and Partenkirchen (in the east) were separate towns for many centuries until their respective mayors were forced by Hitler to combine the two market towns in 1935 in anticipation of the 1936 winter olympic games. They still maintain quite separate indentities.
Today the town is casually (but in correctly) called Garmisch, much to the dismay of the Partenkirchen's residents. There is a slightly more modern feel of Garmisch while the cobblestone streets of Parkenkirchen offer a glimpse of the past.
The area is very popular for skiing,snowboarding and hiking.
Partnach Gorge (south) is 702 metres long and in places over 80 metres deep.
Zugspitze 2961m is the highest mountain in Germany Bavarian.

Our accom. We are third floor up on left.

As you can see we left the sun behind us yesterday and it was already clouded over when we arrived in Garmisch.We had a walk around the town.

In town no blue sky.

We had to walk over this covered bridge on the way into to Garmisch from our accommodation.

Look at this.

Pouring in Garmisch today, cloud very low and hence won't be able to do the Zuggspitze railway which goes to the top of the mountain. Its supposed to be a must see. Very disappointing as we were looking forward to that. This town has a lot to do and see and it decided to rain all day.

Just arrived to look at the Stadium for the 1936 Winter Olympic Games. Soaked!!

The ski jumps. At this stage it is pouring hence the bad photo. But we just kept walking regardless.

And then went on to the Partnach- Gorge which was great. Part of the walk was through caves that were beside the river and as you can see above they had cut out holes in the cave walls for viewing. PT blocking the view. 

Fairly well covered in at this point.

Didn't matter to much that it was a rainy day as water was seeping through the rocks and we would have got wet anyhow.
It was about a 2km walk up a road to get to the gorge as you weren't allowed to drive up. And then another 1km walk through the gorge. 6kms all up there and back. The noise of the water through the gorge was absolutely deafening.

After this we were soaked to the skin and had to change before afternoon walk down to the second town Partenkirchen.

Now in Partinkirchen which is the older of the 2 towns. It conveniently stopped raining when we arrived there. The cloud cleared so we could see a few mountain tops but as soon as we left the heavens opened again. These towns have some beautiful high mountains around them but we have yet to see them all.

Note that there are some beautiful paintings all over the buildings

Just beautiful old buildings

As it started to rain again we went and had some dinner before returning to base.
Later..... It looks like the sun is trying to come out so maybe we will see some mountains before we leave tomorrow.

June 24, 2012 Stelvio Pass Italy to Garmisch-Partenkirchen Germany

Didn't get this away yesterday as had to do previous day due to no Wi-fi in the mountains.
Now in Garmish Partenkirchen shortened to just Garmisch. Having trouble with this Wi-fi although the owner says it must be my computer as nobody else has trouble. Hence can't down load photos at this stage so will just write and see what happens later.

Left top of Stelvio Pass at 8.30am but being Sunday there were already hundreds of cyclists racing down the road from the top of the pass., thousands of them.
Really slowed us down as they seem to think that they have the right of way  so just had to sit behind for miles, to dangerous to pass. Sometimes they were going faster than us as they were going down hill. Probably took us about three hours what should have taken about one hour.
Exciting to see them all at first, probably like being in the middle of the Tour de France. But then got annoying as we couldn't stop for photos just had to keep up with them.

We went through Trafoi then caught up to a lot of stopped cars and cyclists immediately thought that there had been an accident and sure enough their was. Major traffic jam. Finally got moving again but still very slow. Starting to regret coming this way as we changed our coarse today by the advice of the hotel lady.

We went over the Ofenpass lovely rocky mountain scenery, deep valleys. Also over the Fermpass 1210m and then the Fluepass. All very nice. PT will look forward to a day off driving after all this.

We started in Italy this morning saying goodbye to Italy after five nights here all up, then into Switzerland through Austria and now in Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany.
Steffi and Torsten we are back in Germany now until we leave and will be getting closer to you as the days pass.

Arrived at our Hotel about 3.00pm called Gastehaus Hohe Tasnnen.More of a guest house than a hotel.

Weather wasn't looking too good for tomorrow.

Again, no photos as they just don't want to download. Occasionally it will work so might try later today.
Might have to go to Big Mac and test to see if it is my computer or the hotel.

Just back from Big Mac, these are yesterdays photos,

Looking front on at Hotel. Our room left side around the back. Mountain in background we looked over from our back window.

Yesterday posted a shot looking down on our hotel from top of the Stelvio Pass. This one from our Hotel looking up to the top. Great place to stay for a half way stop.

When we were leaving this is what we faced and had to mix in with for a couple hours while we and all the cyclists had to share the roads over all the passes we crossed.

Coming down the other side of the Stelvio pass.

My favourite cows and their lovely cow bells. They sound so nice in the quietness of the mountains.

Showing some of the sharp corners we were dealing with trying not to knock one of them over.

These were some of the scenes we were enjoying. Just beautiful.

More of them.

More mountain scenes.

Taken through the car window. This is where we had a traffic hold up due to an accident but the cyclists just keep going at great speeds down the hill.

Getting near the German Alps.

How about this for a beautiful castle.

Village under the mountains.

June 23, 2012 Lake Como to Stelvio Pass Italy

Sorry didn't get this away yesterday as we had no Wi-fi as we were high up in the mountains.

Yesterday morning left Lake Como after relaxing for two days in very hot, humid weather.

Drove north out of the top end of Lake Como up through some lovely country side. Mountains covered in fur type trees looked very Canadian and very stoney. We went through a little rain for awhile, but fortunately didn't last for long.

We were climbing up through mountains and passes the above called Malojapass was as you can see a lot of fun and a challenge. We were amongst many rugged snow capped mountains. At this point we had climbed 3900 feet, climbed up over other passes to 5950ft. Beautiful scenery.

This was a beautiful lake that we passed before we reached St Moritz. Great reflections.

Took this photo across the lake from St Moritz. We saw a floating nest in the lake which was full of baby birds. Mother duck was bringing in the food while father was fluffy around restoring the nest. Great to watch.

We stayed here in 2004 on our way to David and Evkas wedding and we missed out on this photo then as it was pouring with rain. 

After St Moritz we climbed over the Bernina Pass. Very nice and this shot shows a nearby glacier adjacent to the top of the road. Beautiful. The top of the pass was 6829 feet and 14 degs  

More shots on the Bernina Pass.

Nice to have the cooler weather after all the heat and humidity that we had been having earlier. We were high enough to be higher than the ice pockets on the sides of the mountains.

Then drove onto Livigno where we took a wrong turning for 7kms before PT realised ,but saw a nice long dammed lake. Did U turn and continued back to Livigno now heading for the Stelvio Pass. The big one that we were looking forward to all day.

More of the dammed lake.

This is a great shot looking back down the Stelvio Pass which we had just driven up. Amazing, what a challenge.

Reaching the top of Stelvio, wow what a sight, motorbikes everywhere, cyclists and cars all with the challenge of reaching the top. Cyclists everywhere here all in the enjoyment of the challenge to get to the top at 8988 feet according to our GPS. When we were heading up we were passed by cars and motorbikes travelling at seemingly breakneck speeds. They are mad drivers all thinking they were in a Grand Prix I'm sure.

Now at the top. It was only 13 degrees and at last we have cooled down. All the bikies eating drinking and looking happy. At this stage we were looking around for our hotel and realised that it was over the other side of the mountain (over the white umbrella in the middle of the picture). It was 4kms from us in a direct line but 7kms of zigging and zigging down in the valley.

This was taken from the above photo looking down where we had to go to our hotel which is the little white speck at the very end of the valley floor before the dark shaded mountains.

And here she is, Berghotel Franzenshohe.  Our room is the top left hand window looking straight over the mountains.

The view from our window.

Just somewhere in the mountains.

June 22, 2012 Lake Como Italy

Terrace where we have breakfast and dinner. Very pleasant looking over the lake. We have had two great days here. Is going to be hard to leave .

Went for a drive this morning up to the town Dongo only 5 or 6 km north of us. Fab day, nice little town. Went to info and they suggested that we went up into the hills behind.

Looking across the little harbour in front of Dongo. Between Cremia (where we are staying) to Dongo was nearly all in a tunnel so saw nothing on the way.So decided once we had had our drive up into the hills that we would go back to the old lake road to see the coastline. We could then see why they decided to do a tunnel, so narrow in places. At one stage we had a bus coming towards us, tight.

Half way up the hills looking back over Dongo township. I liked the old shed in the foreground.

Hows this for a home and position. Beautiful gardens on both sides of the house. All shut up so perhaps it's somebodies holiday home. Around it an untidy area.

A lot neater area than most up the hill.

Why do they nearly always put these little churches at the hill tops.

Really in the old area now. We were going to try and drive up this road to get to the next village in the hills. After walking up to check it out decided better not try. Hate to get the car stuck between two buildings.

As high as as we went. Love these lake areas surrounded by high mountains.

Since we left Chimonix we are zig zagging up through the Alps. Starting in France, in and out of Switzerland and Italy ending up in the south of Germany in Garmisch on the  24th.                                            

Still in the hills, how about this one for real estate. New roof going on.

Looking down over Dongo again

More of the old.

Down on the shore where we went back along the narrow coast road which you miss if you go through the tunnel.

Same area lovely position.

Same area again

This is what some of the road on the coast road is like in the same area above. Imagine meeting a bus coming towards you here.

A lot of Hydrangeas in red colours which look nice. Don't see this colour at home. They are more red than the photo shows. They look nice.

After our drive came back to  the hotel about 1.00pm hopefully to relax for the rest of the afternoon before our next two days driving over a few passes. Hope the weather is like this, if not won't see a thing. Perhaps it will be a little cooler up in the mountains.. Still very hot here.

Had two swims in the lake this afternoon. Even PT went in. Cold but really refreshing in this heat. Did a bit of relaxing on the lounger chairs on the lawn by the lake.

Just having coffee on the balcony when this boat flashed by, picked some one up, then full throttle straight to the other side of the lake in no time. A bit of showing off .

We have had computer troubles today hence the late posting of the blog. We couldn't get wi-fi connection to work.
ADAM... where are you
.
We sent text to Jen but she was still alseep at three in the morning. but we were fortunate that the English guy next door sorted it out for us  just as Jen text us. He had to ring a mate in England twice. Felt bad about that. So was up late downloading pictures last night and now have just finished  in time for breakfast, then on the road again for our next destination.

Glad I got it away as thought that everyone back home might wonder if we are still here.
Go the mighty All Blacks.