Berchtesgaden Week–Day at the Konigsee

“The Konigsee stretches like a fjord through pristine mountain scenery from the town of Berchtesgaden to the dramatically situated Church of St. Bartholomew and beyond.”   All the families had the ‘Konigsee’ plan today so we got up early so we could be on one of the first ferry’s together at 8:30.   The German captain gave a little tour pointing out different things in German and struggled to do a sentence or two in English to keep us in the loop. Half way through the trip he stopped the boat and pulls out a trumpet to demonstrate the echo.  Quite distinct and beautiful.

   

35 minutes later we docked at St. Bartholomew, a red onion domed church, really in the middle of nowhere.  This is where we started our hike.

 

We hiked steadily up the mountain in search of the ice caves – a section of snow which hangs on all throughout the year.  As we walked, Matthew got tired pretty quick.  He is not the best walker and is constantly asking to be held.  The last month or two has been kind of tricky since our double stroller died (which of course wouldn’t work for hiking) and he’s way too big for the baby/toddler backpack.   He’s constantly asking to be held, and switches from Chris’ shoulders, Ryan’s back and then back to walking.  I just had to blow this one up just to show this crazy kid’s face.  What a character.

Because of Matthew’s recent love of being bare-chested and ‘awesome’, Chris came up with a brilliant idea.  “Hey, Matt, want to hike without your shirt on?”  Oh, boy… we had no idea how well that would work.  He and Luke had pulled their shirts off in two seconds and were now running along the path.  Running!    They had no trouble convincing Cole to join them as well.    Matt kept asking if it was a ‘no shirt day’.  Yep, definitely a no shirt day.

 

About an hour or so later we came to this stream and eagerly sat down, ate our packed lunch, played in the freezing cold water and made several small group hikes up to see the ice cave – chunks of ice were falling so not everyone went up – just the dumb ones – I mean brave ones.

    

We were hot and tired after hiking back down but we didn’t want to miss out on anything so we took the boat to the far end of the lake to check it out.  More gorgeous views along the way.

We hiked 15 minutes to a little lake that was pretty picturesque.  Across this lake someone has a home and land and sails across on his boat parking on this side of the lake when he needs to.  Talk about secluded.  I couldn’t help think of what this would look like in the winter…. beautiful but freezing!

The kids immediately took their shoes off to wade around for a minute.  Geneva and I got the giggles at a large lady that had decided it was a ‘no shirt day’ too and was hiking with just her bra on.  Anything goes here.  So funny.

 

Really hot and exhausted we walked back to the boat but we sang songs the whole way.  It was so fun!