Berchtesgaden Königssee Long Day
A 313 km loop
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Why this ride
Leave the city behind and spend the day on roads with texture. A 313 km loop that starts and ends near Munich, about 5 h 41 of riding. It goes by way of Bad Endorf and Berchtesgaden. The highest point is about 1,250 m.
Roadbook
- Munich
start
Munich is closer to the Alps than any other German city of its size, and on a clear day with a warm southerly wind called the Föhn, the mountains seem to sit at the end of the street. The wind brings a sharp clarity and headaches for the sensitive, and the locals are used to both. The city lies on the Isar, a river that once ran milky green with glacial water and is now lined with gravel banks where people sunbathe, barbecue and swim in summer. Munich's centre is compact and cheerful, with the twin onion-domed towers of the Frauenkirche, the Rathaus on Marienplatz with its mechanical clock figures, and the Viktualienmarkt for food.
The history here is Bavarian through and through: the Wittelsbach dynasty ruled from the city for centuries and left behind palaces and the vast English Garden, one of the largest urban parks in the world. Beer is a big part of the identity, and the Hofbräuhaus is only one of many beer halls where a litre mug is the normal measure. The Oktoberfest, held on the Theresienwiese from mid-September to early October, draws millions of visitors. The city is also home to BMW, whose museum and showroom, a futuristic building near the Olympic park, is a destination for any motorcyclist, since the company has made motorcycles for more than a century.
Riding out of Munich is a pleasure once you clear the suburbs. The roads south lead to the Alpine foothills, with lakes like the Starnberger See and the Tegernsee and a succession of green hills with cows and onion-domed churches, and the mountains rise on the horizon. To the north and west, the Bavarian plain is flat and agricultural, with straight roads and wide skies. Traffic is heavy at rush hour, and weekend trips toward the Alps can produce long queues. An early start, before the day-trippers wake, makes a big difference.
Fuel is easy in a city of well over a million people. The streets near the centre are crowded, with trams, cyclists and a low-emission zone, but a motorcycle is a good way to move through them. Cafes serve strong coffee and the classic Bavarian breakfast of weisswurst, pretzels and sweet mustard before noon. The air has a fresh, slightly resinous smell in spring, and the light in autumn is gentle and golden.
- Bad Endorf
fuel
Bad Endorf is a spa town in the Chiemgau, a few kilometres west of the Chiemsee, and on a long day to Berchtesgaden it is the kind of place where you top up the tank and keep moving. That is not an insult. The town is tidy and functional, with fuel, bakeries and supermarkets, and it sits in some of the most pleasant rolling country in southern Bavaria, so the stop costs you nothing in scenery.
The spa side of things comes from iodine-rich brine found deep underground, which the town turned into a thermal bath in the twentieth century. You will not have time for a soak on a ride day, but it explains the slightly genteel air of the centre. What is far more interesting from the saddle is the landscape around it. This is glacial country: the great Inn glacier of the last ice age left behind a scatter of lakes and hills when it melted, and the result is a soft patchwork of meadows, woods, moors and small lakes like those of the Eggstätt lake district just south-east of town.
Rimsting, a few minutes away, sits on the western shore of the Chiemsee, the largest lake in Bavaria. From Prien, a little further, boats run out to Herreninsel, where King Ludwig II built his unfinished copy of Versailles. It is a half-day excursion rather than a quick stop, but worth knowing about if you ever come back with time to spare.
The roads around Bad Endorf are a mixture of smooth state roads and narrow farm lanes, often lined with fruit trees and passing through hamlets where the tractors are bigger than the houses. Expect cow muck on the tarmac after the cattle have crossed, especially in the mornings. On a clear day the Chiemgau Alps fill the southern horizon, the Kampenwand and Hochfelln standing out above the foothills, and the ride south towards Traunstein and the German Alpine Road gives you increasingly dramatic views. Summer weekends bring traffic and the occasional police control around the lakes; on a weekday morning in May or September you will have the lanes nearly to yourself, and the air will smell of cut grass and woodsmoke.
- Berchtesgaden
food
Berchtesgaden sits in the far southeast corner of Germany, in a pocket of Bavaria that pokes into Austria, and the mountains here do not bother to be modest. The Watzmann, at 2,713 metres Germany's second highest mountain, stands above the valley in a long ridge, with the pale wall of the Hochkalter opposite. The town is the end of the German Alpine Road, which runs from Lake Constance, and it feels like the end of the line, with the peaks closing in on all sides. For centuries the local economy rested on salt, and the salt mine, worked since the sixteenth century, is open to visitors who put on miners' clothes and slide down the wooden chutes.
The area has a heavy twentieth century history as well. On the Obersalzberg above the town, the Nazi leadership built a compound with Hitler's residence, and the Documentation Centre there explains the story honestly and in detail. The Kehlsteinhaus, the so-called Eagle's Nest, built on a ridge top as a gift for Hitler, is reached by a narrow road and a lift cut into the rock, and it is now a restaurant with views. Many visitors find the contrast between the beauty of the scenery and the history uncomfortable, which is probably appropriate.
Nature is the main reason to come. The Königssee, a deep green fjord-like lake south of the town, is reached by electric boats that glide below cliffs of grey rock to the pilgrimage chapel of St. Bartholomä, with its red domes. The Berchtesgaden National Park protects the high country around it, with chamois, marmots and golden eagles. For riders, the Roßfeld panoramic road, a toll road that climbs to a high ridge above the valley, offers some of the best views in the region, and nearby roads wind through meadows and forest. Surfaces are good, but traffic is heavy in summer, particularly at weekends.
Fuel, food and accommodation are all available in town, though prices rise in high season. Cafés and inns serve local dishes such as Kaiserschmarrn, a sweet shredded pancake with fruit, and cold Bavarian beer, and the evening light on the Watzmann is a quiet reward at the end of a long ride.
- Munich finish