Garmish-Partenkirchen and Regensburg

Thursday - 6-5-2008
I am now in Regensburg, which means "Rain Town" in German. Very appropriate name, since the rain has kept me in my room most of the day today. At least it has given me time to catch up on my little blog. I had German TV to keep me company. Not the best company, since I only understand about half of it! There is the European version of CNN in English, but it is mostly a repeat of very shallow stories or else what seems to me to be almost anti-American stories about how unjust the US has been in detaining terrorists or how great Barack Obama will be for the country since he will change things! Oh well ... It is pretty funny to see Jimmy Stewart and Spongebob Squarepants speak German! There are a lot of American movies on, but otherwise there is not much more to German TV than American TV.
Before I came here I did change my itinerary a bit. I went to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, twin cities that are mainly a ski resort. The 1936 winter Olympics were held there and I went skiing there with some friends back when we were staying in Berlin. It looks a little different now and in the summer.
One of the cool things there is the nearness of Germany's highest peak, the Zugspitze. It is not especially high (about 10,000 feet - shorter than Mt. Graham), but rises so dramatically from the valley floor that it s very spectacular. I found out that there is both a cable car and a cogwheel train that leads to the top (the cable car goes through a tunnel most of the way. The border with Austria is at the top and they say you can see Italy and Switcherland from the top. Did I want to go to the top? Holy cow, yes! The day I arrived, I could see it, just waiting for me! But there was a big thunder storm. The next day it was enshrouded in clouds, so it was hardly worth 45 Euros to pay to see fog! So, I gambled on the next day being better. It was worse! So, I never got to experience the Zugspitze! 45€ is way too much anyway. Oh well.
But, I did walk/hike about 15 miles or so across town and to the top of a small peak in the foothills on Tuesday, where there was a good view of the cloud-covered peaks. I hiked through a place called the Parthachklamm, or Partnach Narrows, where a river roars through a very narrow canyon. They have cut a trail through part of it and a tunnel through parts to let you walk right along he side of the roaring river. Pretty cool!
Also, wherever you hike in the hills, someone lives here and operates a little gaststatte, or guest place! At the top of my hike there was a little place and a bunch of people were on the deck eating and drinking their German beer. There are also small cable cars and ski lifts all over the lower parts of the mountain. I chose to go by foot, though. At least it didn't rain while I was hiking - it is very beautiful and green. There were cows and goats in the meadows, all wearing bells that you could hear from quite a ways away. People in southern Germany greet with not with "Auf Wiedersehen," but "Gruss Gott," which means "God's greetings."
I also visited a tiny little church that I remembered from years ago. It was built in the 1600s and is decorated in the Rococo style which, if you know anything about that, it means it is elaborately painted and decorated with pastel colors, gold, wavy lines and lots of Cherubim (or, what I call naked baby angels). You have to hike to get to it, but it is a real treasure. On the outside it also has a gallery of hundreds of homemade plaques affixed to the wall that memorialize the dead from World War I and WWII. Families have put them there and they have photographs, birth and death dates and where they died. Most of them were on the Russian Front during WWII, but a few died on naval ships or in France. Very, very sad to see how many young men from such a small area had to die for no good reason during wartime. So many unneeded sacrifices, in this case for the "Fatherland." For the US, many died, too. It reminded me of the memorials to soldiers at the cemetery in Ephraim. So sad and so needless.
I stayed a a cute little gaststatte, run by an older lady who served everyone breakfast individually. I think the owners of a lot of these little, inexpensive places just like having people to get to know. The man who owned the one in Weimar was so proud that he took an old farmhouse and rebuilt the whole thing, decorating all the walls and ceilings with hand-finished wood. It was really something.
Here in Regensburg, the little town has very narrow, old streets and another impressive, huge cathedral. I remember coming through here years ago. The Danube River runs through it. Remember the famous "Blue Danube" waltz by Strauss? I'd hum it to you if I could. It has some interesting street names like "Zur shonen Gelegenheit," which means "To a beautiful opportunity." I guess in the 1000s or 1100s it was the right way! The river with its bridge from the 1200s and some boats on it is beautiful, too.