We had been through the Brenner Pass a couple of times – once on the Autostrada and once on the secondary road so we decided to take another route up through the mountains and through South Tirol which was our favourite mountain and valley scenery. We felt as though we were on top of the world at the top of ‘Rombo Pass’or as the Austrians call it “Timmelsjoch-Hochalpenstrasse” where it had cooled to 9degrees – a bit chilly for us but the sun was out intermittently so the van was nice and warm. Maurice liked driving up and down the mountains
with scores of switchbacks except when an Italian driver (the Italians all drive on or over the white line) clipped our side mirror with a huge bang. Very luckily for us we had purchased mirror guards after we bought the van (new mirrors would have been 700pounds)so the bang just disloged the bottom mirror which we could push back in. I think the other car may have had a bit more damage but as there was nowhere to turn around we would never know.
When we arrived at “Camping Erlebnis Zugspitze” we had an uninterupted view of both the Zugspitze and Alpspitze although the top was covered in a bit of cloud. We were very blessed the next four days with perfect weather – 30ish degrees with blue skies. It was cool at night which made for good sleeping weather. A change from Italy where we had the air conditioner going at night.
The campsite was about ten minutes out of town in Grainau but we were given a bus pass to use while we were there which was very handy as we went into town every day and walked through the town and up into the mountains for some lovely walks. The sales were on in town so we took advantage of them. A great little roadside cafe called “Pano” served great coffee and drinks so we stopped there every day.
There were many hikers in town and more seemed to favour the mountains on the Garmisch side of town. Partenkirchen town has been preserved with it’s beautiful painted buildings whereas the former has been modernized to a large extent. I took a photo of Juwelier Stoekel in Garmisch. My mother’s first boyfriend about 80 years ago was the owner’s grandfather and it felt moving to sit across the road in a bakery which dated from 1930 and imagine the place such a long time ago. We even found the house where my mother had a flat on the first floor when she lived there from 1943 to 1948 after moving from Berlin.
It was hard to leave Garmisch on a picture postcard day but we were due near Lake Konstanz to meet up with Maurice’s cousin Margarete and her husband Philipp on the 7th July for a luxury weekend to celebrate my and Philipp’s birthdays. We had driven up the Swiss south side
of Lake Konstanz the previous year so this year we decided to take the secondary roads on the north side to Gaienhofen Horn on the Untersee where we were to stay.