Wednesday 19 June 2024

European Trip - Day 17

Today we got to the highest point in Germany, Zugspitze at 2962m. First we bought our cable car and train tickets from the Wankbahn booking office. Then we caught the bus into town, which was free with the tourist card we got at the stellplatz.

We went to the station for the cog railway and boarded the 9.15 train.


In about half an hour we disembarked at Eibsee station. The train actually goes most of the way up the mountain, but we'd decided to get the cable car up and later get the train down.

The cable car takes you up 1,945 metres in 10 minutes and can carry 120 people at a time. It has the largest single span of any cable car in the world at 3,213 metres.

Very soon we were at the top. It had gone from about 30 degrees at the bottom to 7 degrees and windy at the top, so we were glad we had brought jackets. We had a good wander round the platform and restaurants at the summit. Part of it is actually in Austria.








After a while we caught the shorter cable car down to the plateau, which is where the cog railway station is in an underground tunnel.



Down on the plateau there is the opportunity to visit a chapel, do a glacier tour and eat or drink in the restaurants. We went round the glacier tour, though you can't actually see it as it's still covered with snow at this time of year.







We had a look at the chapel.


We planned to get the cog wheel train back down and had a bit of time to wait, so had a drink at the open air bar. It was a bit warmer here than it had been on the summit.

The cog wheel train goes in a tunnel for about half the distance down, then emerges and trundles down to Eibsee station where we got off again.




We walked round the circumference of Eibsee, which is about 8km. The views both over the water and up the mountains were great.





We caught the cog wheel train back to Garmisch, then the bus back to site at Wank. By this time it had been a very long day and Oscar was shattered.

The bar at the Wankbahn station was showing Germany playing in the Euros so we watched some of it with a beer. For dinner in the van we had tuna salad with kartoffelsalat and coleslaw.

Later Scotland were playing so we went back to the bar to watch the first half. It was a bit painful though.




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