Tuesday 30th October 2018
About 18 kms south of Oberammergau is the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the location of the Zugspitzbahnhof. Here you can take the cogwheel train via Grainau on the Eibsee Lake, through the 4.8 km Zugspitze Tunnel to the Zugspitzeplatt. The entire journey takes about 80 minutes. Trains only run once an hour up and back so best to check the times before visiting.
Once at Zugspitzeplatt the Gletscherbahn cable car will transport you to the summit of the mountain.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen was easy to reach by car as was the Zugspitzbahnhof, where there was ample car parking available, close to a large Lidl store.
Garmisch and Partenkirchen were once two villages but were joined together for the 1936 winter Olympics to become the town it is today. It is a first class winter sports resort and a popular year round holiday destination and it is easy to see why.
Tickets for the round trip to Germany’s highest mountain didn’t come cheap; € 56 each. Unfortunately our hope of a return journey on the newest showcase cable car Zugspitze was not to be, as following an accident during an emergency exercise earlier in September it is now out of operation and will be for the foreseeable future. A real shame, since it only began service in December 2017.
Our train travelled through some delightful green pastures, dotted with dairy cows and wooden winter barns, as well as a few request stop stations.
We had to change trains at Grainau station for the next section of the extremely steep ascent, although our next train was already waiting for us when we arrived. One short pause at a passing section followed by a brief stop at Eibsee and we were on our way again, passed the lake and then on through the amazingly long tunnel section.
On arrival at Zugspitzeplatt we headed for the snow covered outdoor area to take in the views and experience some of the weather elements.
Feeling suitably chilled we came back inside the main building and followed the signs for the Glacier cable car, seilbahn zum gipfel.
The cable car only takes a few minutes to reach summit, where the temperatures reached -6 on the thermometer. The summit station offered even more spectacular views, along with a new revamped restaurant, Panorama 2962 and the meteorological station of the German Weather Service.
We can highly recommend the local goulash with dumplings and cabbage. Apparently a small Bavarian portion 😉 The service was excellent and the staff very friendly.
The cable car back is usually every 10 minutes but as the numbers of tourists were low it is run on demand.
The last train back to Garmisch-Partenkirchen was at 16.30 so we made sure we were not late for this one 😉