Ammersee

Ammersee

The next day after returning from Ibiza the school had planned a trip to Ammersee (Lake Ammer) and the nearby Monastery of Andechs. I know, what was I doing on a school field trip since I’m not going to school this month? Well, even tough I’m not taking any classes I left a couple of contacts/connections at the school and therefore I still get invited to all of the activities they have planned for the month of August by no other than the coordinator of the extracurricular activities herself. Just another proof of how important Public Relations and having contacts is. Ammersee is yet another lake near Munich were people go mostly to sail, rent paddle boats, walk along side the lake promenade filled with restaurants and cafes, or to take a tour across the lake on one of the many boats that look like Mississippi River boats. As soon as we arrived to Ammersee we began our journey to the Andechs Monastery which is located about an hour by foot from the train station (3km or close to 1.8 miles). The Monastery is on the other side of a mountain called the Holy Mountain and you have to walk through a forest to reach it. The walk was not that bad but it had its stretches of very steep and long stairs to help you climb up the mountain. What kept most of us going was our target: reach the Monastery so we could sit down at their Beer Garden to have something to eat accompanied by a locally brewed beer.

Trail on the Holy Mountain -- View of the town of Andechs from the Monastey

In Bavaria no matter how remote a place could seem you can always count on finding a Beer garden in it. Most of the Beer gardens (at least the bigger ones and more traditional ones from what I’ve seen) are self service and allow you to bring you own food. However you need to buy the drinks there. Since I gave up on beer - fearing I would end up with a beer belly by the end of my stay in Germany I had my last beer sometime during the last week of July - I had myself an Apfelschorle to calm down my thirst. An Apfelschorle is an extremely popular drink in Germany which is just a mixture of apple juice and carbonated mineral water. As a matter of fact you can have a schorle of any kind of juice; however apple and pineapple are the most popular ones. After visiting the Monastery (Jose G, Angelo and Louis Molina would probably be happy to know I picked up an application. I will be contacting you later on for some references) we walked down to the lake where we just sat down to enjoy the view and have a coffee right alongside of the lake promenade.

Monastery Church

Group pictures in the Monastery

With this visit I believe I’m up to date with visiting the majority of the most famous lakes near Munich. The only one that I can recall I still haven’t visited, and would like to visit before I leave, is the Stanberger See: the one where King Ludwig II was found dead. You would think that by now I would be "laked-out", but I’m not.

Ammersee