6 Te Travel Guide
Füssen, reaching a final halt at buffers, behind which, is a wall of mountains. Here, near Germany’s border with Austria, the Alps rise abruptly, defeating any engineering that doesn’t tunnel through rock, scale cliffs or span canyons. Over the next five days, my
Across the Alps W
e’ve come to the end of the line. Tree hours after leaving Munich, our train rolls into
companion and I will walk a trans-Alpine route from Bavaria in Germany into Italy’s South Tyrol, remote hiking made simple with specialist operators that arrange hotel bookings, daily bag transfers, maps, route notes and assistance on speed dial. As is the case with Macs Adventure, whose eight-day Across the Alps trip we’re following, albeit a truncated version, stopping short of the Italian border.
A fantasy land Füssen’s fairytale landscape was largely shaped by Bavaria’s eccentric, castle-building king, Ludwig II. And the following morning, the Altstadt (medieval old town) is alive with day-trippers en route to Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein, the 19th-century cliffside inspiration for Disney’s Cinderella castle. Ludwig’s medieval fantasy vision in gleaming white limestone will provide the focal point for our first day’s walk, but Füssen itself first demands pause. Lined with painted churches and boutiques selling handmade lederhosen, leatherwear, and hiking boots, it’s a gloriously gemütlich spot. So
Promotional Content • Saturday 27th January 2024
A trek through the Eastern Alps from Bavaria via Austria to Italy’s South Tyrol offers high-altitude hikes, heady views and a parade of peak-top castles. Words: Sarah Barrell
charming, in fact, that I’m almost persuaded by my German companion on the merits of buying a dirndl, but bodiced Bavarian frocks not being ideal hiking attire, I resist. Winding south through town over
the startlingly turquoise waters of the river Lech, it’s up into the mountains along a snaking path. Little chapels mark stations of the cross, offering both pause for breath and views back to Füssen’s palatial Benedictine monastery crenelated along the river. But we turn our backs on gothic panel paintings and look up: the mountains are calling.
Onwards and upwards An uphill climb arrives at Schwansee, an Alpine lake-idyll, landscaped as hunting grounds for Bavaria’s 19th-century royals. Tere are discreet swimming platforms tucked into the lakeshore and a web of panoramic paths allowing the gentry to be at one with nature without getting their satin slippers too mucky. At a wooden kiosk, apfelschorle and a brezel (locally made apple soda and Bavarian pretzel) pass for a lakeside lunch, before we push upwards again through dense woodland, which finally gives way to the blinding turquoise expanse of lake Alpsee. Here, nature is decidedly untamed
— sheer forested slopes cradle the one-mile stretch of water haloed by jagged peaks. Back into the woods, half the day’s hike still ahead, we’re swiftly lost, app and map in some contradiction. Other hikers are scarce and those we do meet look
Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria, Germany PHOTOGRAPH: ALAMY
horrified on hearing the distance ahead of us. Ten it rains. Some eight miles of now-muddy ascents and descents later, night and clouds descending, we make it into a village where we manage to find a bus, the last of the day, to take us the final leg to Ehrwald. Wet and weary at the end of our first day hiking, we’ve made it across the border into Austria.
Into the unknown Stiff legs barely able to bend under the breakfast table the following morning at Hotel Urviech, our undertaking now seems daunting. Armed with regional bus info, we set off again with a plan to wheel rather than walk when needed. Te limited rural service makes this largely impractical but hopping in with the luggage transfer to get a head start aids progress. After overnighting in the comforts
A couple hiking in the morning sun near the Nebelhorn in Allgäu Alps PHOTOGRAPH: ALAMY
of castle Hotel Schloss Fernsteinsee, the peaks have unfurled their white caps into the valley, where icy mist and snow now blurs around the castle. Above the clouds, the route rolls onwards. Inside the doors of Starkenberg brewery, set in yet another castle, beautiful art deco copper vats blend local hops with water from no less than 14 mountain springs. Te resultant brews are offered up to taste as part of a tour and also, unexpectedly, to soak in. Its on-site ‘beer pools’ in former fermenting rooms make for a bacchanalian spa experience.
After a clammy uphill hike the
following morning, I just about manage to stagger into the hamlet of Köfels, where the kind innkeeper at Alpengasthof takes me in and doses me with a mountain herb tincture on a sugar lump, the local cure for a griping stomach. Te view from Köfels, hung on a balcony ridge in a vast forest of peaks, is one of the most spectacular yet. Te rush of the Ötztaler Ache echoes up from the distant valley floor, a legendary Alpine river where kayakers battle with boulder-strewn white water. Otherwise, all is quiet in the heady oxygen-thin stillness of Alpine altitude. Onwards, the route switchbacks into Italy, but for now, I’m simply content to soak it all in.
HOW TO DO IT
Macs Adventure offers an eight-day inn-to-inn trek from Bavaria in Germany to Italy’s South Tyrol via Austria (June-September) from £1,250 per person, including B&B, one dinner, route notes, maps, a navigation app, 24/7 assistance and one mid-trip transfer. Flights and other transfers not included.
macsadventure.com Featured in National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine’s Alpine guide 2023
nationalgeographic.com/travel
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