Weekend getaway-day 2: flea market, monastery, gorge

Wow, doesn’t that title sound odd?  TO start us off, let’s have a look at a couple of photos of Mr. HH in front of our hotel.  Pretty, huh? That’s the Alpspitz and the Zugspitz in the background.

                      

After a day of merry making at Oktoberfest, we opted for a low key morning.  TOM’s Wife found out about a flea market in Oberammergau (home of a Passion Play first held in the 1600 and is held once every 10 years-next year is it) so we decided to go.  I’m always up for a flea market.  We piled into her car (she can seat 7) and headed up the mountain.  Seriously, up. Oberammergau is about 15 miles from G-P, but most of it is up a twisty, curvy, hairpin turn-y mountain road.   Oberammergau has an elevation of 2746 feet.  The flea market was pretty interesting.  It was far less cosmopolitan than the ones I’ve been to before (of course, I usually go to ones in cities) and had some really different stuff.  Lots of homemade dirndls, local wood carvings (they’re known for this), WWII stuff and old US military uniforms (the NATO school has been located there since 1953).  We didn’t find anything, but it was still cool to look around and to see that Bavarian’s actually do dress in Lederhosen and Dirndls for everyday wear.  

 

After the flea market, we drove to the town of Ettal home of the famous Ettal Abbey, founded in 1330.  Today there is a huge baroque church there and they are incredibly famous for their beer, wine and liquor.  That’s right, the monks brew and sell beer, wine and liquor.  And it is good.  Goooooooooood.

 

After lunch at a cafe just outside the abbey, we headed back down to G-P and to the Olympic Stadium before walking through the Partenach Gorge.  Check out the ski jump!

 

From here we walked about 1/2-3/4 of a mile to the entrance of the gorge.  I had no idea it would be quite so amazing.

   

Can you believe that?  When we got to the end of the gorge, there is a bit of a beach along the river and we decided to go dip our feet in the water.  This is a glacial river, people.  Brrrrrr!  

   

We planned on catching the bus back to our hotel, but someone (Mr. HH) made us miss said bus by about a minute and a half and since it was Sunday, there wasn’t another one for over an hour.  Mr. HH thought it would be a good idea to walk to at least the bahnhof.  About 2 miles away, after we’d already done all the walking in the gorge (approximately 2.5 miles).  Indy and I were not too pleased (especially me with my stupid heel spur), but we trudged on and made it to the bahnhof just in time to catch a different bus.  We went to the same little Irish pub as the night before (mostly because it was right next to the bus stop) and Indy and I nearly fell asleep on the table.  It was a fun, but exhausting day.