Infinity thumbs up for the Bavarian Alps. Even though getting into the parking lot (the last mile) added 45 minutes to the drive. Even though the lift ticket line was pretty long (but ski rental line was short and moved fast). Even though Germans (many Europeans?) don’t know (or simply don’t care) about forming nice orderly lines to get on Gondolas and ski lifts so elbows get thrown, you get pretty jostled and if there is even 1mm of space around you/your skis, someone is going to move in. In spite of all these things, the Bavarian Alps are an incredible place to ski. Words cannot express how grateful I am to have had the opportunity to experience it.

I’ll back up just a bit since it’s been ages since I wrote a post -not that I don’t think about it constantly as I’ve mentioned before. But I think I’ve taken close to 1500 pictures in the last 6 weeks and every time I sit down to write the post about one day (usually a day with 100 photos) my progress gets halted by thoughts along the lines of “NO ONE is going to read a blog post with 100 pictures” Lucky for all of us, I only took 47 pictures on trip to ski in the Bavarian Alps.

I am tracking the posts I *intend* to write and one gets added to the list every day. Sometimes two get added. For example, we visited Mt. Vesuvius and Herculaneum in one day during our trip to Southern Italy before Christmas and although many may disagree, I feel both of those visits deserve their own post. But seeing as how each place had 100 photos, your guess is as good as mine as to when I’ll muster up the discipline to do it.

I am posting on my FB page pretty regularly so if we are not facebook friends and you’d like to be, please send me a friend request!

After Christmas we visited our dear friends, Svanhildur and Thor and their two daughters. They are from Iceland and lived one door down from us in Rochester before they moved to Munich, Germany 2.5 years ago. Our oldest and youngest are also good friends with their oldest, so it’s quite wonderful when we can get together. They visited us in early November. It was a grand time and added about 10 *posts to write* to my list.

They invited us to visit over New Years and round trip train tickets were quite inexpensive (not to mention a great way to travel) so off we went!

They are wonderful hosts and planned out a fantastic week. I am hoping to write a post about each day, but in summary we:

  • toured downtown Munich
  • celebrated New Year’s Eve with a traditional Icelandic meal (smoked lamb, potatoes in a delicious cream sauce, a purple cabbage dish, and green peas with bacon),
  • had fun with fireworks. I’m not gonna lie, fireworks make me very very nervous – so I didn’t do anything with the fireworks. I stood far away from the action and just reminded everyone every 3 minutes how dangerous fireworks are and that they need to exercise extreme caution.
  • visited the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
  • took a trip to Salzburg, Austria where the Sound of Music was filmed.
  • took a trip to the Bavarian Alps to ski
  • visited the Andechs Monestery/brewery
  • rounded off the week with a trip to a pool for some swimming.

Also, it was marvelously sunny the whole time we were in Bavaria. My kind of weather – chilly and sunny. Not normal-chilly for Bavaria, much warmer than that, unfortunately. But in the 30s/40s (F). And sunny (there’s not been sun in Copenhagen for 2 weeks and none expected for another 2 weeks 🙁 )

There were lots of options for ski areas – a few that were within an hour’s drive – but we decided on this one because Svanhildur (expert skier) said that last year they had gone to different places for a week, skied the last day at this particular spot and had such a fantastic time, her comment was “oh I wish we’d skied here the whole week!” To us, that was a ringing endorsement.

The parking lot/mountain base we were headed to was an hour and a half away and lifts opened at 8:30am. So the majority of our group (87%) voted to leave at 7am. I was not in the majority, but decided it was better to not block the decision. We hadn’t exactly decided on a group decision making process anyway. And if I’m going to be perfectly honest, I was *ok* with leaving at 7.

Our family of 4 ended up leaving at 0705 and Svanhildur, Thor and co ended up leaving about 30 minutes later. They have most of their own gear and a 6yo, so getting everything takes longer.

And as soon as the mountains (and sunrise) came into view, I started taking pictures. I have loved the mountains (preferring them to the ocean) since at least high school, so forgive me for the possibly-not-best quality photos from the car.

Sunrise.
As we drove the view just got better and better. I had mercy on my family and did not take people photos until we were at the slopes. Folks were a bit grumpy and groggy.
Sometimes I can be sensitive to these things.
What’s cool about this particular photo is the smoke from the house. Notice how it rises up, then goes horizontal.
MBH noticed it first and then explained the physics behind it, which I understood as he explained it, then promptly forgot.
So it goes with just about every physics-related thing he patiently explains (again and again and again).
We’re getting closer to the mountains!!!!!

Although google maps told us the drive would take less than 90 minutes, turns out the rest of Germany had decided to go to this ski area (and this particular parking spot of the ski area) that morning too, so we hit bumper to bumper traffic about 2km from the parking lot.

It took us another 45 minutes to park.

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to tamp down on my [too often completely unjustified] irritability and anxiousness about things not going exactly according to plan (it’s particularly bad during traveling and in traffic).

So I had the opportunity to practice my *do not be a complete jerk* techniques as we inched along at 1km/hour towards the parking lot.

Deep breathing, and the mantra “It will be ok it will be ok. this *really* is sweating the small stuff…it will be ok it will be ok.” I think it worked, but have not asked those around me for their opinion on the matter.

This ski area has 3 different parking lots. One in Germany, one in Austria, and I can’t remember where the 3rd one was.

The deal is, you park, get your equipment (if you need to rent anything), buy your lift ticket, get in line, and scan the ticket at the turnstyle (they do not attach to your jackets but can be read through the outer pocket of a coat) and take the gondola up the mountain to the ski area.

We parked in the Winklmoosalmbahn gondola parking area. And no, I cannot pronounce that word. Fortunately, that is not a requirement for getting on the gondola.

See all those people in the crowd?
They are pushing forward to go through the turnstyle to get on the gondola. Lift and gondola lines are nonexistent.
Throwing elbows, cutting in lines, giving everyone around you a dirty look, is all part of the fun.
But In spite of the lack of orderliness, these lines move fast.
I think this line was only about 10 minutes.
They’d probably move faster if they introduced ropes and had one attendant managing the lines.
But apparently that’s an American skiing concept and there’s been no sharing of “best practices” across the Atlantic.
Lift tickets and equipment rentals in Europe also seem to be about half the price of American ski resort prices.
We made it!!! All smiles!
View from the gondola on the way up.
Clear blue skies, stunning views.
Obligatory selfie. On my left is the oldest. She is refusing to have her face in pictures approximately 95% of the time these days.
I think she’ll regret it when she’s older, but I try to refrain from saying so out loud.
Because if there’s anything that will make sure she *will never regret it* it’s me telling her she will.
In any case, we’ll have gobs of pictures of her hair and back to look back on with fondness.
And I will be grateful for the shoulder in this picture.

Even though traffic to get into the lot was really bad, the crowds at the bottom of the mountain looked over whelming, and the chair lift lines seemed long, once we were on the mountain, we never waited more than 5 or 7 minutes to get on the lifts. And most of the the slopes are long and wide so it did not feel nearly as crowded.

And the lifts are super fast too.

And ALL the lifts had a bar to rest your skis on – a luxury not found in many East coast ski resorts.

When MBH went looking through all the photos we’ve taken this last year for the 2019 Christmas Card, out of the thousands of photographs taken, would you like to guess how many had all 4 of us in them?

Three.

Three family photos in 2019. And out of those 3, approximately zero were ones we were all happy with.

Ugh. Key learning for the year. Take more photos will all 4 of us.

An aside. If you’re not on our Christmas card list and would like to be, please email me with your home address. neely.kelley@gmail.com.

We had to send them by direct mail order service this year so are now sending 2019’s card via email. But for next year’s card you’ll be on the list for a hard copy!

And just for fun, I added the picture of 2019’s card at the end of this post.

Here is attempt #1 for a 2020 family photo.

Notice how the youngest is different from the rest of us?
No?
She is not wearing her helmet.
Everyone wears a helmet in Europe. Adults and kids alike. Not sure if it’s the case in the US (i think mostly just children?) but in Europe everyone does. The youngest HATES THEM. And blames her older sister for having to wear one. Because last year when we went to Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia, we didn’t make them wear one at first and the oldest fell and hit her head.
Thankfully she was fine, but after that we made them wear helmets and wore them ourselves.
So the youngest gets to blame the oldest for this misery we put her through. EVEN THOUGH the youngest is the MOST responsible when it comes to wearing her bike helmet.
So when we started out on the slopes she was being surprisingly stubborn and defiant about it.
Taking it off at every opportunity, skiing down the mountain holding it in her hand while glaring over her shoulder at us.
But we told her too bad.
She would wear it or not ski for the rest of the day. And if she chose to do that, then one of the parents would have to go with her and she would owe us $$ (or, to be more accurate, €€) for not only her lift ticket and equipment rental, but for the parent’s as well.
And we would garnish her allowance until she paid us back.
Still, she was surprisingly stubborn about not wearing her helmet.
Because they know that when we makes such threats, we are fully prepared to follow through on them.
Finally, about 30 seconds before I dragged her over to the gondola with me to stop for the day (We’d skied one slope) MBH realized what the problem likely was.
She was probably hungry.
It was 11am and she hadn’t eaten anything since 0630.

So we skied down to a lunch spot.

The area right outside Mosaralm where everyone leaves their skis/snowboards/poles. That view. I couldn’t get enough of it.
Another view of the Alps. Just because.
It wasn’t really that cold. Upper 30s and sunny. So we sat outside. Anything for Vitamin D from the sun. We are also taking Vitamin D supplements.
The youngest housed her 10lb plate of spaghetti with meat sauce.
We think she’s going through a growth spurt.
Her appetite is impressive these days.
The oldest didn’t have time to duck away, so settled for a half smile/half grimace.
MBH and me. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s possible to both take a good selfie and the impressive view at the same time (or I’ve just not figured it out yet).
So I switch it up.
Fun selfies, then view photos.
It started getting cloudy while we were at lunch, but the views were still spectacular. Key learning – it was harder to find our skis and poles here than it is to find our bikes at any Copenhagen train station.
Look who’s wearing her helmet and isn’t trying to kill MBH and I with her glare!
ENOUGH WITH THE PICTURES.
LET’S GO MOM!

You may have been wondering at this point “so what happened to Svanhildur, Thor and co?!?!?! By 1pm we weren’t sure. Our cell service had stopped working about 45 minutes before we got to the mountain road traffic jam – long before we got into the parking lot.

Also, our phones were super confused. Every 30 minutes we kept getting simultaneous messages from our cell carrier “Welcome to Germany!” “Welcome to Austria!”

All day long.

Like the cell towers in the two countries were fighting for us to use *their* tower.

With the end result that neither country’s cell tower had the honor of doing so. And so we couldn’t communicate with each other or with Svanhildur and Thor.

HOWEVER, at 2pm we saw them!!!! And here’s the photo to prove it!

Like ships passing on the mountain. They were just heading out from a break to ski (and had really been slowed down by the traffic, so had gotten on the slopes about an hour and a half after we did) and the youngest and I were heading in for some hot cocoa.
But we snapped a quick photo to prove we’d actually seen each other.
Ah, hot cocoa, warming up.
And even though you can’t tell, the views out those windows are amazing.
View from the porch of the hot-cocoa afternoon break spot.
The youngest was SO MUCH HAPPIER and herself after lunch and hot cocoa. The eldest and MBH had split off to go ski intermediate slopes. In Europe, intermediate slopes are *red*, beginner slopes are *blue* which caused some confusion for us initially, but we quickly adjusted.
For non-skiers, intermediate slopes in the US are *blue* and beginner slopes are green.
On both continents, advanced slopes are “black”
In my younger years I could ski black diamonds (college up to mid-20s). As I approach middle age, I stick with the beginner slopes. The youngest is happy to accompany me.
I have parented this child her whole life, so you’d think I would *know* that when she gets impossibly stubborn and just not herself, it’s not just her behaving badly – because she doesn’t really – that she needs one of 2 things – food and/or sleep. Maybe one of these days I’ll be quicker on the uptake.
And here she is, all smiles.

Because we didn’t have cell service, we had just agreed to all meet back at the car after the lifts closed down at 4pm. There were two ways to get back to the car: Ski all the way down (blue all the way) or take the gondola.

I had forgotten this and had it in my head that the only way to get down was by the gondola and it closed at 4:30.

So when we got there at 4:00, this is the sight that greeted us:

No orderly lines, hundreds of people.
I count 4 glares, how many do you see?

So to pass the time, I asked the youngest if she’d smile and give a thumbs up for the ski day.

This was her response:

Glare #5.
Not impressed with this gondola line.

I really really wish I’d thought to look at the map to ski down instead of wait in this line.

MBH and the eldest did do this and reported that it took about 45 minutes through beautiful, quiet, woods with hardly any other skiers.

Of course not, they were all crowding around the gondola.

If you recall from our hike up to Mt. Ulriken in Bergen, Norway, the girls and I were pretty scared of the lift/gondola that carried us down the mountain – affectionately referred to as the “swinging death trap.”
For whatever reason, this gondola did not inspire such fear (at least not for me).
You can barely see the little machine on the left side of this picture, in front of the grey haired man in the grey coat. This is where your ticket gets scanned and you go through the turnstyle. This introduces a little bit of order to an otherwise wholly unorderly process.

We made it on the gondola and given spirits were quite high, I asked the youngest if she would give me the kind of glare she was giving me earlier in the day when she didn’t want to wear her helmet.

I’d had a bit of mercy on her and didn’t try and capture her behavior and mood (except for the one family photo).

This was her response:

I can be super grumpy and ticked off and ridiculously stubborn, but can also have a sense of humor about it.
Yay! Back in the parking lot!
Also “omg mom ENOUGH WITH THE PICTURES.”
I do believe she will be grateful for this one day.
4:30pm. The rising moon at dusk.
The setting sun in the distance.

So all in all an amazing day skiing in the Bavarian Alps. Although we had hoped we’d be able to ski for at least 2 days on our trip to Munich, one day was perfect for our trip. And of course it makes me want to move here and stay permanently. Pretty much everywhere I’ve ever visited becomes a place I dream about moving to and staying permanently. And I can enjoy just dreaming about it.

And here’s our 2019 Christmas Card.

Designed and written by MBH.

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7 Comments

  1. Great pics of the Bavarian Alps Neely. I had heard about the mobbing to get on a chair lift or gondola. Good way for tempers to flair. As measured and exacting as the Germans are about everything I can’t believe they don’t have ropes etc for orderly lift lines.
    Great blog and look forward to the next one.
    DAD

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