Having given up on more snow (now forecast for the day after we were leaving) we decided to capitalise on the absence of rain and visit the Rossfeld Panoramastrasse. This is a route that briefly crosses into Austria and climbs to an altitude of 1600m. It was planned during the Third Reich to impress foreign dignitaries and is now Germany's highest toll road.
No sooner had we left our house and began to climb did the rain start. Well we thought it was rain, but the higher we climbed it was obviously snow, a fact that elicited squeals of excitement from Gunther's back seats!
At the next layover we were out of the car, throwing snowballs and building Tannika's much anticipated snowman.
By now it was snowing quite heavily and satisfying our need for the “white” part of Christmas exceptionally well.
Further up the road we found an alpine café serving wunderbar hot chocolate and beer, satisfying everyone's wants before we moved on again.
After completing the route we tried to find somewhere where the girls could “sled” or snow tube but the slopes that offered this option were lower down the mountain and did not have enough snow. They contented themselves with a couple of runs down a hill near our house seated on a plastic shopping bag,which subsequently necessitated a quick change of clothes before we were off to pursue our next venture.
My wish list included “a one horse open sleigh” and we had heard that they had started at Hintersee on Christmas Day so we wanted to catch that out to the deer feeding station which is set up in winter in the National Park.
This proved to be 4 euro each well spent and after travelling out in the “two horse covered sleigh” (using wheels today but equipped with a sled!) we walked back, ravenous after somehow missing lunch
Many of you will know that I have been monitoring a particular live webcam in the village of Ramsau which shows a beautiful church in a very picturesque setting which we had visited back in the summer of '08. With the light rapidly disappearing, we found the spot and quickly messaged the only person back in Oz whom we thought may be awake (at 2.30 am), Ben, who didn't let us down. He was online and watching as we waved and posed from the bridge and then very kindly posted our webcam shot on FB to capture the moment. How good is technology?
The last thing on our 'to do' list was a return to the famous Heng Heng's Chinese restaurant in Berchtesgaden. The venue for a great meal and a couple of take aways back in 2008, it is where you go when you have had a surfeit of meat and potato.
We were greeted with the infamous green Heng Heng cocktail (which we still have no idea of the contents) and then began the difficult task of choosing from a huge menu. Heng Heng himself served us and when we told him we had returned all the way from Australia we were treated like royalty, right down to the complimentary schnapps at the end of our meal in the MOST surprising of shot glasses!! Details in person only!!
After paying the bill (about 22 euro each and we left food on the plates there was so much) we were given two special Heng Heng panda tea cups and drove home, still laughing about the shot glasses.
As Tannika pointed out, the best Boxing Day ever!
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