My interests in terms of travelling are versatile: I like city trips, fancy restaurants, museums and live performances by artists and orchestras as much as I like to be surrounded by nature, enjoying nice views and listening to nothing else than the sound of nature. Yet, this perfect combination is quite difficult to achieve, especially within just one long weekend. A place where it is possible? The Allgäu, located in Germany’s south.
We planned a short weekend trip as a birthday present for my dad and chose Kempten as our base. We have special ties to this city and yet we have not really been there for many, many years – a mistake as it turned out. Kempten is a beautiful city which surprised me with its many stunning buildings, mostly from the baroque age. The size of the city is just perfect to explore everything on foot: from Kempten’s impressive and large Roman ruins (Cambodunum) to its wonderful St. Lorenz Basilica. Kempten is also called the gateway to the Allgäu and in consequence you can find many shops offering outdoor equipment, possibly finding a few bargains. Next to that, the variety of restaurants, especially of such offering extensive southern German food, is great. Here I want to highlight the beautiful hallways and beer garden of the restaurant Zum Stift as well as the newly renovated Fasshalle, an old building with a modern interpretation.
Serving as the mentioned gateway to the Allgäu we left the city on our first evening to enjoy the dinner and sunset on a so-called alp close to the town of Wertach, by car only thirty minutes away from the city center. Seeing the northern range of Europe’s highest mountains from little distance made dinner quite spectacular.
On the next day, it was time to go to those mountains we saw from a little distance. Most Germans probably wish to be once on top of their highest mountain, the Zugspitze (2,962 meters). We went there although it is quite a bit of a drive from Kempten. Next to enjoying the views from the mountain top alone, we were also looking forward to use the new cable car, which has been in operation since December 2017, and the old cog railway. Both are technical miracles of their time, considering the elevation gain on a relatively short distance. Unfortunately, the organization around those technical miracles was not brilliant at all. The official parking space was already occupied, causing a significant traffic jam. This was also due to a lack in guidance and alternatives. We managed to park our car in a nearby village and to use a public bus in order to get to the valley station of the cable car. Unsurprisingly, the public busses where overcrowded. I wonder how you can build an all-new, efficient cable car without building the necessary surrounding infrastructure? What would be annoying in normal times, is simply intolerable in times of a pandemic. Eventually, we made it to the top of the mountain, enjoying spectacular 360° views. Even though I should have known better, I was surprised that Austria and Germany basically share the peak area. It is kind of funny that you can walk from one country to another and back on top of a mountain peak area. While we had great weather and fairly mild temperatures during our explorations, the region was hit by heavy storms just hours later, even leading to a few centimeters of fresh snow on top of the Zugspitze.
After a delicious dinner and a relaxing night of sleep back in Kempten, we were bound for the Breitachklamm, located just thirty car minutes south of Kempten. It was not our first visit in a gorge and yet we were amazed by the rock formations shaped by the powerful, never ending water of the Breitach river. Later stages of the hike offered nice views over the local valley. In the afternoon, we explored the nearby town of Oberstdorf, another great base location for hiking and many other sorts of mountain sports. If you are there, do not forget to visit the ski-jumping hills, they are quite impressive.
Looking at a map, you will realize that the Allgäu is located directly north-east of the Lake Constance, a lake so big that it could actually be a sea, connecting Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Within just one hour by car, we reached the city of Lindau. The old town of Lindau is located on a little island and offers plenty of stunning, mostly medieval architecture – and all of that with many great views of the Lake Constance and the nearby Alps. Heading back home, we used the highway, stopping one last time for the monastery of Ottobeuren, located quite close to the city of Memmingen. The size of the cloister church made me speechless and after a little internet research I learned that the site is referred to as the Swabian Escorial. Frankly speaking, the Spanish El Escorial is a league of its own, hence the comparison might be a bit far-fetched, however, that of course does not make Ottobeuren less impressive.
Looking back, I cannot believe that all of those manifold memories were made in just four days. It was a good reminder that such undertakings should be done more often and that also the regions nearby to one’s home can be equally spectacular and fun.
@sebel_tours 
Fun-fact, if you are at the lake of constance, you are basically in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at the same time 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwHj4lj3F-k
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[…] an area with an high infection rate (>50 per 100,000 inhabitants), I ended up hiking in Austria, enjoying southern Bavaria, having a grand tour de France and seeing one of the world’s most iconic mountains, the […]
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