Tourist Profile travel and photography

Wamberg

Wamberg, what are the chances you heard of this little village if you are not German ? and even if you are German ! This post is about a wonderful little village, pretty well known in its area and a popular hiking destination in Bavaria, south Germany.

Wamberg is famous due to this white church on the left, the small mountain village being the highest village in Germany, that has its own church. The church is here since 1721 and if you are lucky to catch it open it is worth visiting, at least for the altar.

At an altitude of almost 1000 meters above see level, surrounded by forest covered mountains and snow covered mountain peaks, this place is a natural wonder. It is easy to understand why the first people settled here.

To reach Wamberg most people hike, although the people living here do own cars and various agricultural equipment so the area has asphalt covered road. Trust me, you want to hike all the way here. Another way to reach Wamberg is by combining a hike with riding a wire "gondola", the one you can see down the page, which is the Eckbauer cable car.

Regardless if you want to hike here or ride the gondola part of the way, the starting point is the famous Olympia Ski Stadion in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It takes one hour to reach the gondola end of line, by foot, from the Skistadion. It is the option we took when we visited the area and it is a very worth option. The views are incredible and the air is fresh, no traces of pollution here either, the people going down or up always salute (except a bunch of americans, those did not salute). It is polite to salute them back and in Bavaria, just like in the neighboring German speaking country of Austria, the way to do it is by saying "Grüß Gott", which is more or less a "bless you". To grüß is to salute and Gott is God, translating it closely would mean Salute God. This local salutation is a common base for jokes in other parts of Germany, a southerner saluting a northerner by "Grüß Gott" may receive a rather unexpected answer "I'll salute Him, when I'll see Him".

Once you reach the end of the line for the wire gondola, which only has two seats, there are a few hiking choices available. Since the subject of this post is Wamberg, I will not cover the other choices.

If tired and thirsty there is a nice Gasthaus ("pension") nearby with terrace and umbrellas where you can lodge, eat and drink.

If not so tired Wamberg is only 45 minutes away, most of which are decent. The views are wonderful and we discovered a couple of benches along the way, not something you would expect up there. These benches are well thought out, not in the sense of construction but in the sense of positioning, sitting on the bench you get one of the best views possible form that spot.

On the way to Wamberg be careful of mountain bikers, not that anyone would bother you, simply because they go up from Wamberg, reach the top at the gondola end of line and go down one of the other  ways; and on their climb up there momentum is important the effort is considerable.

As you get closer to Wamberg the trail becomes more city like, as you can see in the image on the right it is covered with asphalt. Do not let this bother you, the views are just as great and the reason the asphalt is there is agriculture. We got the chance to see a small tractor like vehicle on our way up before reaching the gondola station and a few fenced parcels where animals were kept, like th goats in this photograph on the right. We also saw cows and sheep, dairy products and meat being some of the income sources for the local population.

As we heard from a very nice gentleman up here, nowadays most of the people work in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the tourism industry, services or other industry branches, this is because the pay is just as good if not better and the work is easier compared to mountain agriculture. Also the tourism in the area is booming, the entire southern region of Bavaria being covered with very popular tourist attractions and being a tourism magnet since the 1930s.

Once you reach Wamberg you get to see the view from the first photograph of this post, with the village and the white

church dominating the surrounding area. On the left side of that is the village edge and the very small graveyard. We were wondering how come a village with such a long history and a church since 1721 only has such a small graveyard. There are two reasons for that, one is that Wamberg is very very small, about 20 houses, second is that they use the city graveyard and third is that having a family grave or crypt is not uncommon.

Than as you keep descending and getting closer to the village the stones on the rooftops start getting your attention. They certainly did capture our interest. It seems that at this altitude winds can be very strong and tiles from the roofs can be blown away or even worse, depending on the construction type. It is certainly not a common view, quite a wonder for some and something to tell others about, especially city folk which may have never gotten the chance to visit such a beautiful place. As you can see in the two images bellow, the size of the stones is not a joking matter.

What we have seen as something common to German villages is also present here, the flowers at the windows and balconies, the benches in front of the houses and the Biergarten or Gasthaus.  Wamberg certainly has flowers, benches and a Gasthaus where the hungry group of ours had drinks and food and good conversation.

Before the gear recommendation  I want to make a note about German hospitality, this is because all kinds of nincompoops bother me by saying that Germans are cold, distant, or some other stupidity. Germans are polite and due to their politeness they may seem distant, put simply they do not want to intrude. However if approached and talked to Germans are quite warm people and fun and they have their own type of humor.

To support the above is the fact that the waiter from the Wamberg Gasthaus offered us a ride to Garmisch, as he was driving for the city and we were the last guests. We did not ask for the ride, we simply paid and started walking, his car caught up to us and as it was getting dark the man stopped and offered to take us into Garmisch. Needless to say it was a free ride, the conversation was good and we ended up taking a group photo and eating dinner at the restaurant he recommended to us. It was a good choice.

Photographic gear reccomandation

We had both Canon and Nikon gear and that has to do with personal choice. Both served us well and there is nothing to complain about. For lenses we had: 28mm and 50mm primes, 18-55mm, 18-200mm, from which the 18-200 was the most versatile lens, followed by the 18-55mm and the 50mm. The best addition to the lenses was a polarizing filter. I think regardless of the lens choice, the polarizing filter had the most impact.
We missed a tripod or monopod, not that we needed one much but at some points I wished I had one for group shots, angles, positioning and so on.

Thanks for reading and if you visit Garmisch-Partenkirchen, hope you decide to visit Wamberg, it is certainly a worthy hike.