Mountains...

A friend of ours, Robin, celebrated his 30th birthday last Saturday. Since he lives south of Munich, we took the opportunity to play tourist and to visit a good friend.

We ended getting up around 6am on Saturday. After Quinn's feeding, we hit the road and were on Chiemsee (one of the larger lakes south of Munich) in time for breakfast...on the lake.

After breakfast, we headed a bit deeper into the Alps to go for a hike. We found a nice trailhead and took the gondola up and planned to hike down. I was wanting to hike up and down, but (in hindsight), I think the 1200 vertical meter climb would have been a bit tough carrying Quinn. Maybe next time when we have a bit more time.

Quinn was a bit skeptical of the gondola ride - his first ride on a gondola.

At the top, we found the first overlook and the first mountain refuge, or hut. There are literally thousands of miles of trails, and these huts are all over the place.
...and with a moutain peak, comes a Berggipfel (cross at the peak)...also very common for the Alps.
...to the right of this mountain face, you see Chiemsee.
During our hike down, we ran across this small chapel next to another mountain hut. We had some great weather (a bit cool and windy though) and even better views. Every time we do these sorts of trips, we say that we need to do them more often. After all, we can get in the Alps - traffic pending - in 2 - 2 1/2 hours.

After we were most of the way down the mountain, we stopped at this refuge...similar to the huts that are in the mountains (Berghütte), this is a hut in the fields in the mountains (Almhütte). These are especially cool, because the owners tend to have cattle (with bells around their necks) that are walking all over the place.

We had a great, yet simple lunch...and I splurged and had a beer...you can almost do no wrong ordering soup and beer at these places. The food is almost always great, it is not too expensive, it is usually homemade, and the people are almost always very friendly...

...but hard to understand. The deep Bavarian dialect is not easy to follow and can cause difficulties for those native Germans that were raised outside of Bavaria.
After the hike, we headed to the hotel...we were close to Robin's place, but still pretty much in the sticks. Here's the view from our hotel room (above) to the main hotel.On Sunday, we headed back home, but we headed to a nearby lake - Simsee for Quinn's feeding. Unlike Chiemsee, Simsee seems to be much lower key and has less tourists. You still have the Alps as the backdrop. All in all, it was a great two day break from our reality of 'home'.