day 13 – austria was a handful today, but the Mittenwald ;)

Innsbruck, Austria > Mittenwald, Germany > Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

Before I left Australia I did a little 500px research, basically 500px is a website where some really great landscape images are posted, not to mention the images are geotagged which means pretty precise locations are given for each image, great when you don’t have much time to sit around and find the perfect spots, so for this day I found 6 different locations with GPS coordinates to shoot.

The first 2 locations lead me to nowhere, absolute dead ends, 1 was a brick wall ;), so moving on to my third I was a little sceptical, had I got the GPS coordinates wrong?

Nevertheless when you don’t succeed try try again, well i had 4 more tries ;), and more often than not there are other gems along the way like the Castle and old train station.

My next spot was high up a mountain, it started well, my GPS had the exact point and there was a road leading directly to the spot, or so I thought, I didnt exactly get to the spot I had researched but did however find some amazing views of the Mittenwald region.

Amazing lookout, as it turned out the road I was on was a loop road mainly used by Mountain Bike riders, so you can imagine the looks of disdain when the Skoda drove by, don’t get me wrong they deserve to be there just as much as I do but for whatever reason they feel they owned the road so would either not let me by or would force me to move over or, well and then would abuse me in German, lucky I don’t speak the language ;).

Hey let me take a selfie, this is all pre-selfie sick realisation :).

Xmas tree anyone?

Now I have no idea what this was, if anyone can share with me what this i would be impressed (email me info@vettasmedia.com).

Another lookout, perhaps a military sniper hut ?, probably not but I just watched the movie Shooter hahah.

and Mittenwald :).

So far 1/3 spots was good, not exactly what I had researched but turned out great, next on my list was a little town called Krun, 500px showed some pretty cool mountain scenery so was hopeful after what #3 delivered.

Following the GPS coordinates i started to get that ‘ohh this isnt right’ feeling, I drove past the coordinates and another dead end, however I thought I might be able to tackle it from another side, so turned around and went through this little town, I seemed to be heading in the right direction, then I came to some road blocks, great road is probably closed, but there was traffic moving in both directions, so i continued on, as I came over a crest I noticed to my right what looked like this amazing home, it was HUGE, seemed to be all glass walls, as I turned a corner I noticed a road leading up to what I thought was a house, and as I drove ip the driveway I was greeted by the below image, wow!!!.

WOW!!! Das Kranzbach Hotel amazing, its a HOTEL and the glass windows I could see was I beleieve a restaurant for the hotel, apparently this place is where the wealthy europeans come during the winter (according to the concierge anyway hahaha).

Personally I like it during Autumn, beautiful colours, perhaps a little snow on the background mountains would make it perfect 😉

Of Course there was a Porsche there 😉

I drove through Krun which seems to just end, and well it took me to this Hotel, Schloss Elmau, I couldnt see most of it, however looking at their website this place is impressive and at $1000 per night for their basic room, yeah I’d say it is, there was the new BMW i8 Electric sportscar there, I tried to take a photo of it but security stopped me, I spoke to them for a bit but nothing, then the owners wife came out to grab something from the car, they said something in German and she spoke to me in english, told her my story (hahah) and well I couldnt take a photo but she let me sit in it, wah so cool, she then told me her husband works for BMW and this is apparently a special model, i really didnt understand what, but understood why they didnt want photos, as soon as I jumped out the concierge drove the car in to a garage just by the entrance, WHAT THE? I later found out the guy was also the son of one of the owners of the hotel hhaha, and I sat in his car hahah.

 

By now I was rather hungry, it was about 3pm and I really wanted to get to Garmisch before sunset, so grabbed a quick meal, OMG best Schnitzel ever, up till then anyway :).

mmm schnitzel yummmmm.

The suns was doing crazy things with the clouds, I wasnt going to get a clear sunset but it was certainly going to be dramatic.

and we arrived just in time for golden hour in Garmisch-Partenkirchen at the bottom of Zugspitze and Alpspitze, there were two GPS coordinates I needed to find, the first as was the flavour of the day led to someones private property, the second however was the Golden Ticket.

The road to the Golden Ticket and Alspitze, well I couldn’t get to the actual mountain but this road took me pretty close, I actually had to turn back because the road was to steep for the Skoda, I literally couldn’t get up it and at one point the brakes started to fade as I climbed and well as the car started to slide backwards the brakes where lets just say a little soft and it was slightly scary, without risk there is no reward right? 🙂 this was all calculated of-course :).

panorama from the top of near Alpspitze, I made it right on time, I wish I had arrived earlier, but the plan was to come back tomorrow.

Croatian meal of assorted meats, awesome and was a welcome change to my other dinners of late.

ok so here is my little story about this lovely couple, I wish I could remember their names anyway, near the very top of ???? I ran in to them walking back down the mountain (not literally), they stopped me and offered me $$ to give them a lift back down the mountain, the sun was setting, it was getting cold and they had missed the last cabble car back down, so it would be atleast a 3-4hr hike to get back down, I oblidged but said I needed to get to the top first, no problem, 30 or so minutes later and on my way back down there they where, funnily enough i past probably 6 or 7 others who all asked me for a lift hahah, anyway I gave them the lift and they were so happy, they offered me €50, i said no way, I was happy to help, I drove them back to their car and they offered to take me to dinner, and he we are at the end of the night finishing dinner in Germany in a Croatian restaurant 🙂 haha, what lovely people, this just reiterated why I love traveling so much, its not the things we see or do but the people we meet and talk to, hopefully they will see this and email me (info@vettasmedia.com).

Next? check back next week 🙂

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