Europe Day 12 – August 31st

24 Celsius and Sunny

This is the twelfth of twenty posts documenting Margaret-Ann and John’s 2011 trip to Europe.

After breakfast at the Lindl-Hof Hotel, Sepp, Margaret-Ann and John set off driving around Bad-Aibling and area to see many of the places Sepp and John’s relatives knew very well:

• The site of the old family Gasthaus in Mitterham,
• Heufeld, where Sepp and John’s paternal grandmother, Anna, was from, and
• The Wahlfahrtskirche, Pilgrimage Church, in Weihenlinden, where Sepp and John’s Aunt Annie would frequently ride her bicycle to from Mitterham.

Then it was a short drive to Aschau where the group rode the cable car to the summit station of Kampenwand mountain (1467 metres) for breathtaking views of the Bavarian Alps. While Sepp and John hiked a little further along toward the west peak to get a view of the Chiemsee, Margaret-Ann relaxed on the balcony of the SonnenAlm restaurant/inn. Just before leaving the summit station, the group watched a parasailer launch himself off the mountain and followed his flight as they descended in the cable car; also catching sight of the splendid Schloss (Castle) Hohenaschau on the way down.

It was a short drive from Aschau to Prien on the shores of the Chiemsee, where the group took a ferry to the island of Herreninsel to see King Ludwig II’s Royal Palace of Herrenchiemsee (New Palace), modeled after Versailles.

After the ferry ride back to Prien, the group drove to Rosenheim where the Herbstfest (Autumn Festival) was in full swing. Many people were dressed in the traditional Bavarian outfits: lederhosen for the men and dirndl for the women. The owner of the Lindl-Hof Hotel had earlier told the group that Oktoberfest in Munich was “Disneyland”, while the Rosenheim Herbstfest was the real deal – I think he was right.

The group had dinner at Rosenheim’s Flötzinger Bräu restaurant, then returned to the Lindl-Hof Hotel in Bad Aibling, where Margaret-Ann retired to work on her trip log and Sepp and John had a wiessebier on the patio and discussed world affairs and family history before turning in for the night.

And so ended day twelve of Margaret-Ann and John’s 2011 European trip. Keep checking the blog for more postings of this trip.

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