Monday June 3rd

This morning we woke up to....well, it looked pretty much the same outside, except this time it WASN'T raining finally!  Yes it was drizzling but it was nowhere near as bad as it was yesterday.  So we had breakfast as usual, although it was in a different room which was slightly confusing.  Again, I managed to swipe a giant pretzel and pop it into my bag for later, after scrubbing the salt off it.

Packed and ready to go, we filled the car and checked out.  The woman at reception spoke English and gave us a local map, showing us the way to Stock where we were going to get the ferry Herrenchiemsee.  She said that the village on the south side of the river was almost totally flooded - it had even made the news.  She said she wasn't sure the boats were going or if Herrenchiemsee was flooded, but we hoped not.  We left and made our way to Prien and then Stock, and we were at the harbour at 10:15.



I know it was more or less a sign from the beginning that everywhere here was closed.  But as we passed the ticket office, there was a sign stating that we could get the tickets ON the boat.  So we wandered up and saw a number of boats in, and even one arriving.  Not only this, but a number of people were wandering around looking just as puzzled and lost as we were.  We looked at the pathways to the boats and sme were flooded, although we noticed a couple we could have easy got through without getting too wet.  But then a woman came along with some tape and some signs, taking photos of the flooding on her phone, presumably she worked there.  One of the other people who was wandering around and had previously asked us if we knew if the boats were running, decided to ask the woman with the tape.  She shook her head and said "No, no boats today or tomorrow.".  So our day trip to Herrenchiemsee was cancelled.


We left feeling very unhappy and disappointed, as Herrenchiemsee was one of the grand palaces which we had really wanted to see.  But then again we didn't know that we were about to enter the part of Europe which was experiencing mass flooding on the first few days of our trip.  Looking at the map, we went to Rosenheim and stopped for a walk about and some lunch.  We found the tourist information office and walked through a sculpture park before wandering through the town enjoying the colourful and clean buildings and plazas.  After having lunch, we heded to an exhibition gallery but baulked at the price for an exhibition on Alexander the Great which we had no idea whether or not would have English translations included (audio guide 5 euros extra each), so we left disheartened and made our way back to the car, stopping off for a pastry on the way to eat later.  We were enticed by the sign for "Butterkuchen" but we actually bought a large parcel of pastry covered in icing sugar....


Back in the car, we passed some police who were directing traffic, and more traffic diversions, although we were able to continue with our journey.  We stopped off in an area which was on the map as a marshy area but was actually a nature reserve with a number of walks.  We probably would have gone to investigate it it hadn't been so cloudy and wet.  We had been driving past some mountains, or so we thought....we had the feeling of being near something large looming overhead but we didn't actually see any mountains at all, just dense forest everywhere.  We ate the pastry which we had bought earlier, it was nice but we couldn't quite decide whether or not it actually had something in it or not.  Mathew was convinced he could taste something fruity, whilst I could tell there was something soft on the base but no flavour as such. Perhaps next time we'll go for the Butterkuchen.....!

Continuing onward, we shortly arrived at an area of the road which was indeed, flooded.  To be honest if it had flooded any more than it already was, that road may well have been cut off.  Who knows, maybe it was cut off after we had passed though it.  The water was very deep, or so it seemed, as the traffic took it in turns to drive on the less flooded side of the road to get through.  The road basically went through the marsh land which had a number of channels flowing through that had burst their banks.  It must have been at least a good 30cm deep at least, but this was nothing compared to what they were experiencing in Passau.  That was all over the news - south Germany, Czech Republic and Austria were all experiencing major flooding although our route had actually taken us around and away from it, the only casualty being that we were unable to visit Herenchiemsee.


Continuing on, it was still raining but it was more of a steady drizzle rather than a downpour which was what it was like yesterday.  We finally arrived in Ettal and got out to have a walk around a little, especially as I had spotted THREE wood carving shops on our way in.  They seemed far away but didn't actually take that long to get to on foot.  Going into the furthest one first, I found a bear shaped magnet and a cute tree, and Mathew bought a different tree.  Everything was wooden, not a single thing for sale in the shop was made of anything else.  The second shop seemed more expensive and I'm not entirely sure it was open or not, but it had a number of religious figures inside it alongside other things.  Outside there was a large wooden sculpted bear which I had to have my photo taken next to, of course!  Further along, the third shop was selling anything you could think of with a particularly distinctive face on it.  Again, I'm not sure if it was open when we walked by, but we weren't sure we wanted to buy a random object with a random moustachioed rosy cheeked face on it.

On our way back to the car, we stopped off for a look at the Monastery which is still in use and looks really rather epic from the outside.  Back in the car, we climbed the hill to the hotel which we could see from the car park.  It had a very similar facade to that of the previous Hotel-Gasthof which we had stayed in.  We checked in and found our room easily - we were sharing a balcony again, but this one was much wetter than the previous one which was more sheltered.  Our room looked out over the front of the hotel and up into the.....um.....mountains.....which I am sure were there but we still had not seen them.  Cloud covered us and the place was wet through.  We were now higher up, right on the edge of the Alps.  In fact Austria was only over the other side of the mountain which we were (apparently) facing.


Dinner was straightforward - we had spent lots of time trying to translate it from the photos which I had taken from outside, and then we discovered they had an English translation!  The layout of the rooms was a little odd though - we walked through the Breakfast room and into a corridor which took us into the actual kitchen, not the restaurant.  it turned out that the restaurant was actually on the side.  Initially we had walked into it but the waitress had just disappeared so we weren't sure if we were supposed to just sit ourselves down or wait to be seated.  I'm sure we must have amused the local customers by walking in and out different doors each time, but still....even though it was a nice little restaurant room the layout was not the best...!


That evening we turned on the TV and saw the extent of the flooding everywhere.  Even though we had been through a few areas which were a little flooded, and had to follow diversions her and there, we quickly realised just how very lucky we had been to miss the worst areas.