Travel article: Konigsee & Obersee Lakes

Bye bye Tyrol, we leave Innsbruck with great memories of beautiful lakes, majestuous mountains and men wearing funny outfits (think Oktoberfest outfit for a man above 60!).

A 3 hours scenic drive away , towards extreme south east of Germany are other mountains and national park called Berchtesgaden.

We arrived in a beautiful little B&B, in a typical wooden house with the famous bougainvillea we see in every villages since we arrived in Tyrol and Bavarian Alps.

The whole purpose of our stay is to discover German Fjords (or at least looking like a fjord!): Konigsee and Obersee lakeS.

We arrived quite early and got onboard wooden boats (everything has been made in wood in these regions !), electrical (since early 19th century, impressive) to cross Konigsee lake and reach Obersee lake, 20kms away.

The cruise took 35 minutes to reach the first island of St Bartholomae, known for its church with red domes giving it an orthodox flair. From there another 20 minutes is needed to reach Obersee.

Along the 55 minutes, we couldn’t stop thinking how beautiful it was! The lake was calm, the pine trees stand beautifully on its shores, mountainous landscapes were reflected in the dark blue with green nuances lake.

Fun fact: the echo is really impressive in the lake and each boat captain play some music on a trumpet to prove it. Hence our question: do you have to play trumpet to become a captain in Germany ?!

We thought many times we were in a Norwegian or New Zealand fjord , or Canadian lake but no this is “just” Germany. So close to France but we never considered going before...

When we arrived at the other side of the lake, we’ve been greeted by an ever more beautiful lake -Obersee- with green nuances this time. We walked around 2 hours, just enjoying this summer day, beautiful sun illuminating the mountains peak, little cabanas to park your boat. A dream day!

It was time to come home and work a bit, good timing as it started pouring rain.

Germany you keep surprising us, so happy we did this European tour ! (Thanks to all our friends who got married in France this summer which is the main reason we ended up travelling in Europe ! )

Some recommendations:

# it’s easy to spend a day here or more with the many hikes starting from St Bartholomae or Obersee.

# ferry return trip: 17.80 euros.

# parking full day: 4 euros

# it’s only 30 kilometres from Salzburg and can be accessible by public bus as well.