Germany, often considered as the heart of the European continent is a country known for its rich history, beers and castles. We were particularly interested in the southern part of Germany – the Bavarian region. Places like Neuschwanstein Castle were always on our bucket list. Our investment in the timeshare company called Karma in 2022 meant we had access to their wonderful stay in the Bavarian region for almost no extra cost (just on points). After a bit of research, we decided we could stay in the same place (Karma Bavaria) for the entire duration of the stay and do day trips to lots of nearby places including those in Austria. That made for a very good plan for a European vacation. We booked our stay for 10 days in October of 2023 (during the Dasara holidays) at Karma Bavaria and the travel involved visits to different parts of South Germany, Austria and even Leichtenstein.

We spent around 4 days visiting different parts of Germany and this blog will focus on those days.

Before the travel

Best time to visit

The peak tourist season for Germany, just like other mainland Europe, starts from June to September. April/May and October are considered shoulder seasons where temperatures are still manageable but with much lesser crowds. When we visited Bavaria in late October, there was an unusual drop in temperatures, dropping to single digits and some rain around as well. The weather got a bit better as our trip progressed with temperatures reaching higher teens. The Bavarian region also sees some interest from tourists during December because of the snow it gets and a lot of snow/winter activities like skiing on offer in that region. But the days are much shorter as the winter sets in and your window of opportunity also goes down, to do various activities as you get closer to December.

Visa

Germany they say is one of the easiest countries to get Schengen Visa from (statistically not true). Hence the popularity of the embassy and also the crazy wait times for appointments. No matter how many times you have been to the Schengen region, the application process still baffles most people, the amount of paper work needed and printouts of them all, the craziness of finding an appointment slot -simply mind numbing. We applied 3 months in advance through the VFS center in Bangalore and got a multiple entry visa valid for 30 days – good enough!

Forex

Germany uses Euros just like most countries in Schengen area. We decided to get some Euros in cash from India and mostly rely on credit cards for the expenses during our travel. The credit card acceptance was pretty good (>95%). There were very few places I would say that demanded money in cash – may be an odd street vendor, some parking pay machines etc. We bought the Euros from ThomasCook, they do give better rates if you call their customer care and ask them to match prices from other online vendors.

Flights

Munich is the capital of the Bavarian region in Germany. Since that was the closest airport to our stay, we booked return flights on Saudia Airlines from India to Munich. We took a chance with a lesser known airline, but on the hindsight, we wouldn’t recommend for others. The flight from Jeddah to Munich was much better in terms of hospitality and flight but the Indian leg were both messy. The check in experience was underwhelming, they even missed our baby car seat on the way back and we had to wait for 3 to 4 days before we had access to it again.

Car rental

Best way to experience the Bavarian region and Austrian Alps is by driving. We booked the rental car through Avis (on Expedia.com without paying anything for reservation) for pick up and return at Munich Airport. We got an upgrade from Economy to SUV (Manual drive) since we were paying them for their super cover insurance. International Drivers Permit is necessary to rent, and we were asked for one during the pick up. We carried our baby car seat from India since the rental would have cost us a lot for the 10 day travel.

Sim card

We got international roaming activated on Airtel, paid around 4.5k for 12 GB of data for 30 days. Sim card at the airport costs around 40 Euros for 5 GB data. If your phone supports ESim, that is the best way to go, since data only ESims are much cheaper than the actual sims. An ESim would have cost around $10 for the same amount of data for similar days. Do check out the ESim compare site before choosing your data plan or vendor: http://www.esimdb.com

Travel Experience

Itinerary

We spent 4 days in Germany across the 10 days we stayed in the Bavarian region.

Day 1: Visit Zugspitze, Lake Eibsee and Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a charming and picturesque mountain town in the Bavarian region of Germany. It was about an hour and a half drive from our stay in Schliersee. A short distance away from the town you will find the Germany’s tallest mountain – Zugspitze. On a sunny clear day, the combination of visit to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Zugspitze cable car ride and the mountain top exploration and paddling boat around the nearby Lake Eibsee would have made for a perfect day outing. But on our first day in Germany, it was raining and the visibility wasn’t too good. We decided to take a chance and see if it clears sometime later in the day. We started little late in the day, driving directly to the base of Zugspitze to reach around noon.

We parked our car, bought the tickets to cable car and had a mini meal while we waited to make a decision on whether to take the cogwheel train or cable car up the mountain. The cable car tickets gives you a choice to take either cable car rides up and down or there is an older cogwheel train track that takes you to the mountain top (not the top most) albeit a bit slower than the cable car. Since it was raining, we felt maybe we should just take the cogwheel train up. It took about 30 mins to reach the end station of the train and the ride took us through dark tunnels. Good for one time experience but nothing compared to the cable car ride experience. If you are worried about experiencing altitude sickness or pressure changes in your ear because of fast ride up (3000 meters in 10 mins), stick to the cogwheel train.

From the cogwheel train stop, you have to take another smaller cable car to the top. The top of the mountain has not just a view point from where you can see many countries simultaneously like Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. It also has restaurants, souvenir shops and a museum. It was snowing at the top and we had fun making snow balls and playing in the snow briefly before the sub zero temperature forced us to go inside. The views weren’t clear and so, we decided to head back after a short stay at the top. Even while coming back, although not raining, it was very cloudy and gloomy. We didn’t get much views of the lake and nearby areas from the cable car. On a sunny perfect weather day, it would have made for a wonderful experience at the top and during the rides up and down.

The Zugspitze itself is situated in between Austria and Germany with cable cars from both sides to reach the top of the mountain. You can chose to take any of them depending on from which side of the mountain you are arriving to that place. We then made way to the Garmisch-Partenkirchen town for late lunch and finally headed back to the hotel early since there wasn’t much activity happening near Lake Eibsee either. We ended up making something of what was otherwise meant to be a complete wash out day due to bad weather.

Day 2: Visit Munich

Munich is the capital of the Bavarian region in Germany. It is known to be the birthplace of the famous Oktoberfest and also for its amazing food and stunning architecture celebrating the Bavarian style. Munich was an hour ride from our stay and we decided to park our car at one of the “Park and Ride” parking garages in the outskirts of the city and take the metro to the city center. These “Park and Ride” sites are plenty in numbers around Munich and many of them are conveniently located next to a train station allowing quicker access to the city center, perfect place to park if you are coming to the city from outside. The price per day for the parking itself is also very reasonable and it was a no brainer to chose this for us over the expensive city center ones.

The train system in Munich takes some time to get used to. To begin with, you can chose to purchase single journey tickets or a day pass. The ticket machines are located before you come to the platform itself and there aren’t any concept of gates through which you have to enter after scanning your ticket. Its mostly honor or trust based system. Munich is divided into different zones and the cheapest train ticket for the shortest journey starts at 1.8 Euros. Children below 6 travel for free and 6 to 14 are considered for Child prices (fixed cost of 1.8 Euros no matter the distance). The day long ticket valid for multiple rides in a day is also zone based and starts from 9.2 Euros, goes all the way upto 12.7 Euros. You have to look at the map and the zones before deciding to pick the zone. We bought a day pass since we planned to move around a bit including specific places for lunch.

Marienplatz is the central square of Munich, the heart of the city and a good place to start your day excursion. The most popular attraction in that area is the central tower featuring the famous Glockenspiel. A mechanical clock that is famous for characters moving in coordination with music to tell stories. The performance lasts 10 to 15 mins and occurs daily at 11 am and 12 pm as well as 5 pm during the summer.

Right off of Marienplatz is a food market called Viktualienmarkt, offering the best of local food. Frauenkirche also known as the “Cathedral church of our lady” is one of Munich’s most famous churches with its two giant towers. It is also popular because it’s tower gives opportunity to experience amazing panoramic views of Munich.

It was now time for lunch and we had plans to visit the Indian restaurant in Munich – “Saravana Bhavan”. So we took the train to the nearest station and made our way there. But if you aren’t missing Indian food too much, you could try one of the famous Biergarten’s of Munich, the most popular one being the “Hofbrauhaus”. Being the oldest Biergarten in Munich, its design shows off the Bavarian culture. With its lively music and livelier staff and giant beers and pretzels, its one of the highly recommended places for dining in Munich.

After lunch, the next stop for us was the Max Joseph Platz. This square is named after king Max Joseph whose statue is found in the middle. There you can see the façade of the residence and former royal palace. If you are in Munich for longer time, you can visit the inside of these palaces and residence. Close to this was the “Theatine Church” located in another popular square “Odeonsplatz“. The bright yellow color of the church is hard to miss.

It was finally time to focus on some souvenir shopping as it was evening already and not much day light left. A short walk from the main Marienplatz square will lead you to multiple stores selling souvenirs specific to Bavarian region. We always wanted to buy an authentic cuckoo clock from Germany and this was the place and opportunity to get it. After searching few stores, we finally bought one from a shop called “Herrmann Geschenke”. Also a popular souvenir is the beer steins and we got a beautiful looking one from another store on the street.

Finally it was time to head back home, we took the train back to our parking spot and rode back to our stay to conclude a good day trip of Munich.

Day 3: Visit Neuschwanstein Castle, Füssen Old Town and Linderhof Castle

Fussen is another charming town in the Bavarian region, mostly known for its proximity to the fairy tale Neuschwanstein castle. The castle is located in the town called Schwangau which is 5 mins away from Fussen. From the base, there are 3 ways to reach the top to see the castle – you could either walk which is about 40 mins one way, or take a bus which runs every 15 or 20 mins or take a horse drawn carriage. The horse carriage and the walking route follow the same path and start from the parking lot/ticket center itself. Whereas you need to walk for 15 to 20 mins from the parking lot to reach to the bus stop.

The bus dropped us off at a point which was close to the famous bridge “Marienbrucke”, the famous viewing platform of the castle. The views of the castle from this point is amazing and undoubtedly the best place to see the castle in its full glory. A short climb up further from the bridge will take you to another viewpoint with views from a higher vantage point. From the bridge, we had to walk for 10 mins down on the other side to reach the castle itself.

Though called a castle, technically its just a palace since there aren’t any walls fortifying the place to make it a castle. On reaching up close to the castle, you will really start appreciating the beauty of the castle, each block or stone is placed with perfection and it is no wonder that it inspired the Disney’s Sleeping Beauty castle. It draws millions of visitors each year and its easy to see why – it is picture perfect! a bucket list item indeed. Though the castle gardens are free to explore, you need a ticket to enter the castle itself. But most people do not recommend that. Also, tickets for castle visit gets booked well in advance and can’t be bought at the site.

After the castle visit, we stopped at a restaurant near Fussen. Along the way, you will start seeing the castle from far, from different vantage points and it never ceases to amaze you, even from that far.

After lunch, we decided to visit the Linderhof Castle, another famous castle in the area built by the same king – King Ludwig II. This palace is a bit far off from Neuschwanstein and the road also goes into Austria before getting back into the German region. Make sure to have your special Vignette for the car before you enter Austria.

It was past 5 pm when we reached Linderhof. The parking lot looked deserted already. We quickly made our way through the pathways to reach the main castle. The staff had already started their end of the day cleaning process and we could get only a few photos of the palace before we had to head back. The place was also undergoing some kind of renovation as well, blocking the view a bit. We would recommend to skip palace simply because its so far from Neuschwanstein and the scale is also not nearly as big as Neuschwanstein.

Day 4: Explore the nearby Schliersee lake

On this day, we spent half the day exploring activities at our resort. After lunch, we drove around to explore things that Schliersee had to offer. Central to Schiersee is the Lake. One can easily spend a whole day here, soaking up the serene surrounds, tapping into many activities on offer, or merely working your leisurely way around the lake’s authentic alpine eateries and Biergartens. From May to October, you can take a 20-minute motorboat crossing to the picturesque island of Wörth in the middle of the lake (we didn’t do it).

Next, we took the scenic cable car from Schliersee to Schliersbergalm lookout. In about 4 minutes, you’ll reach an altitude of 1061m, and be greeted by some magnificent views. At the top, there are restaurants, an open air swimming pool, kids playground etc. After spending a couple of hours there at the top, we came down to the bottom by taking the thrilling toboggan ride.

If you are visiting this area in winter, this place transforms into a magical winter wonderland, with winter sport enthusiasts heading straight to Spitzingsee to experience various snow activities such as snowboarding, skiing.

Additional Information

Shopping Guide

The largest supermarkets in Germany are Edeka, Lidl, Kaufland and REWE. Make sure to shop here for largest collection and discounts. For clothing, check out the discounted stores of “Kik” and “Tedi”. They have a large presence all over Germany and prices are reasonable. The usual super discount store “EuroStore” were far and few, only found one during our visit. There was an excellent offer running on Tedi stores, we made multiple visits to that, at different locations.

Some souvenirs to get back home from Germany include Beer Steins & Cuckoo clocks. Cuckoo clocks are made in the German Black Forest region and are very high quality and expensive. We bought a mechanical Cuckoo clock for 250 Euros. They are generally well packaged for flight journey but make sure to bring them back in the cabin of the flight.

Tax Refund: If you are a tourist and purchase for >80 Euros (single bill) from a store, you could get tax refunded at the airport. Refund counter is located before the security at the Munich airport but was busy when we went. If you want refund, go early.

Driving in Germany

Driving in Germany is pretty much same as other European countries, you drive on the right. The only interesting part to cover specific to Germany would be the Autobahn network. Autobahn are highways in Europe, but it gains popularity specifically in Germany because they don’t impose speed limits on drivers. These are not dedicated controlled highways one would have imagined for allowing higher speeds. Though, the recommended limit is still 130 kmph. On most of the highways in Germany, the road transitions between being on autobahn and normal speed limits. Some road signs on the highways were new to us, do familiarize before going (Trucks cant overtake smaller vehicle, different speed restrictions for different class of vehicles, based on weather like rainy/slippery road, and during certain times of the day like after 8pm)

Note on Fuel prices: Fuel prices are much cheaper in Austria than in Germany. The prices are variable at different locations in Germany such as in the main city vs suburb. Google maps shows prices on fuel stations and is a good way to get information on where to stop for refueling. Prices on Highway pumps are costly, best avoided if you can.

The last thing to note is that German highways don’t have concept of rest areas, unlike Austrian ones. You will have to exit the highways if you want to stop for bath room breaks.

Parking

Parking is another topic that might required a dedicated section of its own. Public parking on the roads is almost non existent and most places demand cash for paying at parking machines. Especially in cities, you have to rely on parking garages which charge by the hour or in batches of few hours. You will get multiple listing of garages when you search on google maps, just choose something which has good reviews and closest to your point of interest before you start your journey. Make sure to have a plan B if that garage is full.

For Munich, you have multiple park and ride garages (surface parking) where you can park for entire day at reasonable prices and many of them will be located close to the metro station from where you can board the train to the city center.

A special note on the Zugspitze parking – Showing the parking ticket gives you some discount when purchasing the cable car ticket at the counter. Make sure to remember to collect your discount when purchasing cable car ticket.

Final Thoughts

We have always enjoyed road trips when travelling abroad and this was no different. The choice of stopping wherever you want, starting the day whenever you want etc., always felt like luxury that road trips offer. We had the added luxury of staying at a single place for the whole duration of the travel, so didn’t have to pack and unpack. Overall, it turned out to be great experience, we saved a lot of money on the free stay, we were able to knock off some of the big ticket bucket list items like Neuschwanstein Castle, Biergartens visit etc. If only the weather was a bit more conducive, it would have made it even more memorable.