I’d done a little planning before our trip to Bavaria so my first ‘must see’ was Hintersee, the nearest lake to Ramsau. We could have made use of our Berchtesgaden guest card and hopped on a bus but I knew that the hour’s walk would be a treat in itself.
Initially we were walking on the southern bank of the river so it was a tad frosty with the mountains keeping us out of the sun. We enjoyed an easy walk through the woods until we reached Zauberwald or the Magic Forest. This was a stunning section of the river with waterfalls, tumbling streams and huge boulders littering the forest floor. Of course this was a great photo opportunity. Dougie thought it would be a good wheeze to pretend to hold the boulder in place. It was only when we looked closely at the photo afterwards we realised Atlas was performing his stunt right under some very lethal stalactites.
We reached Hintersee and decided on a short diversion before walking around the perimeter. I’d made a note that there was a winter deer-feeding station a short walk south into the National Park. We were in full sunshine at this stage so it was heavenly to take off layers and saunter along the wide valley floor towards the deer. Unfortunately I had no idea what time the deer had their lunch and didn’t have the wit to check either. So we hung around for ten minutes, peering at the empty troughs and wondered whether, as there was no snow, there might not be any extra food provided. We couldn’t wait for too long as we still had the lake to explore. Later in the week we discovered the deer eat lunch fashionably late, around 2pm.
Hintersee is very easy to walk around in an hour. From every direction the views are exceptional and particularly when the sky is blue, providing an ideal background for photos. We weren’t the first to appreciate its beauty. The lake has inspired many artists, who flocked to the area in the late 18th century onwards to paint the landscape. Rather cleverly, boards showing examples of their work are dotted around the lake so that visitors can see the exact location of the paintings. It’s very humbling to see the same view of the surrounding mountains over 200 years after another eye had admired them.
We probably spent longer than an hour at Hintersee as it was so beautiful. There are benches to sit on, places to eat and drink (not all of them are open in the winter) and natural spots to take a rest and admire the scenery and the clear, sandy-bottomed water. We could have taken the bus back from the lake to the hotel but we opted to retrace our steps which meant our day’s walk was about 20km. Those extra steps meant that we thoroughly deserved our late afternoon snooze by the pool and a hearty hotel dinner including a very delicious jam sponge pudding. There’s always room for a pud when you’ve walked your socks off.
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