Day 13 - December 22 - Off to Tegernsee

This morning we packed up and Ron made numerous trips down the stairs to pack the car. When I commented that it was cold in the apartment with the balcony door open, he said, "You go up and down the stairs six times, and you won't be cold!"

We took the mobile phone to the shop for the third time (had to replace chip yet again), and walked to the Cafe Kronner for breakfast. It is a lovely, old-world kind of place with crystal chandeliers and glass counters filled with cakes, pastries, truffles, and many candies. The kind of place where you can sit with a cup of coffee and read the paper for hours and no one will bother you.

Ron's breakfast - Black Forest Cake - beautiful and delicious

Mary's breakfast - Spiegeleier und Speck (the German way) - Sunny side up eggs fried on top of bacon

A beautiful shop in Garmisch on a beautiful day

We left Garmisch about 11:30 AM and drove a little over an hour to Rottach-Egern on Tegernsee. We had not been here in about 25 years, and we wonder why! It is such a beautiful area, and is the favored playground of the well-to-do Munich crowd. 

We were reminded of that fact when we drove up to a beautiful hotel for Ron's "morning beer" (a German tradition), and there was a porter/valet in white shirt, black trousers and vest at the door - along with an Audi marked "VIP Shuttle". The hotel was stunning and the level of service was extraordinary. We watched a group dining in the more "casual" restaurant, and a parade of men in formal Bavarian  dress attended to their every need. 

Park Hotel Egern Hofe

After checking into our "slightly" more modest Hotel Berlin, we were enjoying their cozy living/lounge area with Christmas music  by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Perry Como! (Rather funny when they definitely don't cater to Americans or tourists other than Germans - not even any ice cubes to be found!) I went to the room to put away the computer and freshen up, and made the mistake of locking the door. When I was ready to leave, no matter what I did, I could not get the door open. I tried to go out the terrace door, but there was two-feet of snow. I figured Ron would come eventually to find out what was taking me so long. Meanwhile I was rattling the key and resorted to knocking lightly on the door, hoping he would hear me (the lounge was not far). There were other people there, so I was too embarrassed to scream. Finally, he came along and said through the door, "What is going on?" After telling me to try all the same things I'd been trying, he went out to go around and also discovered too much snow. He had to get the owner to come with another key. The owner came in, closed and locked the door, and promptly opened it with no problem. No idea what I was doing wrong, but I'm not locking it again! Ron said he could hear all the rattling of keys and knocking, but figured it was some "senile old lady". Ha!

After that we set out to explore the town and discovered another lovely hotel, the Seehotel Uberfahrt. We sat in the lobby listening to a fellow in a black suit playing a grand piano - a great experience. Watching the folks checking in was quite interesting - have never seen so much Louis Vuitton luggage in my life! We are planning to come back to that hotel for Christmas lunch in their Italian restaurant. It is one of the few places open that we've found where you don't have to order an expensive five-course meal.

From there we drove to another hotel that had a stube and a wine bar, but after checking it out, decided just to walk across to the lake shore where another Christmas Market was going on. We "dined" on a kaesekrainer - a good and inexpensive choice!

Rottach-Egern Christmas Market

Off to Munich tomorrow, awaiting arrival of our friends on Christmas Eve morning.