Naaman's hair is getting longer so we decided to bring him to have a haircut at the local hair salon. It seems that the hairsalon does not do children haircut but one of the hairdresser actually broke tradition and allow Naaman to have a haircut there by quoting a mere €12. I can see that one of the hairdresser are not very happy with this decision but we coud not care less how she felt and continue to let the hairdresser giving Naaman his haircut. Well, he did not do a fantastic job and I suspect he is just an intern/apprentice but could not complain much as Naaman got his haircut at such an affordable price.
After the haircut, I have planned for a 1 day excursion today to Berchtesgaden with Panorama Tour. The price is pretty decent at only €42.00 per adults and my boys are excluded from paying the tour fees. The schedule was to visit Marktschellenberg (Where Julie Andrews sang “The hills are alive with the sound of music” in the opening scene to the movie - The Sound of Music), the beautiful Konigsee and Berchtesgaden.
After the haircut, I have planned for a 1 day excursion today to Berchtesgaden with Panorama Tour. The price is pretty decent at only €42.00 per adults and my boys are excluded from paying the tour fees. The schedule was to visit Marktschellenberg (Where Julie Andrews sang “The hills are alive with the sound of music” in the opening scene to the movie - The Sound of Music), the beautiful Konigsee and Berchtesgaden.
The tour that we took is only 4 hours i.e. from 2PM to 6PM. The distance of Konigsee from Salzburg is roughly 45 minutes and your tour may be combined with the Salt Mine tour, which means a detour, which also means, lesser actual tour time. The company's website did made this detour apparent although it just mentioned "This tour may be combined with the Salt Mine tour". The "may be" should be re-worded as "most definitely be due to profitability reasons" for more transparency. So our first "stop" - Marktschellenberg! We actually just past by this location with the tour guide mentioning something to the line of "To your left, is the famous Marktschellenberg where Julie Andrews sang the opening theme of The Sound of Music - The Hills Are Alive". OK, Marktschellenberg... "check"!
Next is to drop off some tourist at the Salt Mine for their Salt Mine tour. We will need to be back here to pick them up again around 5PM. Talking about some pure waste of our tour time! A double whammy is to get rushed and humiliated in the bus when I was 8 minutes late to the pick up point in Konigsee which you can read here. After the drop-off, we headed to the beautiful Konigsee. We are parked outside the attraction and the walk from the parking area to the lake itself could take around 10-15 minutes depending on how fast your feet carries you. Our allocated time here is approx. 60 minutes as we will have to head back to the Salt Mine to pick up the tourists that we dropped off earlier to go to Berchtesgaden. So 10-15 minutes in and similar timing coming out means that we will have roughly 30 minutes to explore the lake. What a wonderful and generous time! Ahem, excuse my sarcasm. If you need to find a toilet, that means that you only have 20-25 minutes to explore the beautiful lake. It is more like a touch and go thing. The Tour Guide explicitly warned all of us to NOT take the boat ride otherwise the bus will leave without us. Oh Geez, the beautiful St. Bartholomew Church can only be seen by taking the boat trip, so if you don't, then what are you in Konigsee for?!?!?!
If you'd like to venture a little further to see the beautiful lake, you must be ready and able to trek for 10-15 minutes before you can find a restaurant perched on a vantage point that allows you for a reasonable beautiful viewpoint of the lake OR you will need to trek further to find a scenic point with 2 benches that are crowded with people. Anything further, you will miss the bus, so be warned. From the scenic point with the two benches, if you have some good telephoto lens, you may be able to get a shot of St. Bartholomew church like yours truly below. Otherwise, just be thankful that you actually capture a glimpse of it at all.
Yours truly is actually a little bit of a maverick. I ventured a little too far and took a little bit too long (8 minutes to be precise) and made the whole bus waited for me including those at the Salt Mine tour. I saw a track somewhat leading down to the lake while I made my way back to meet the rest of the gang. Its a question of "Do I go back to the bus without knowing what it looked like at the end of this track until the next time I re-visit (which could be never), or do I disregard the instruction and find out whether there are any treasures waiting for me down the track?". Well, I did the latter and it was truly beautiful! I even saw a campfire place left possibly 2-3 days earlier and could only imagine what a great time the campers had there. My photography does not do the place justice but I will still share it because it is still beautiful. My wife and MIL will definitely scold me after they read this post 😂😂
After picking up the other tourists from the Salt Mine tour, our next stop is Berchtesgaden and we are given roughly 30 minutes there. For that time, you can visit a huge part of the town... NOT! You can barely move 1km away from where the bus is parked or you will end up earning the wrath of the other tourists and oh, yours truly even got a chiding from another tourist earlier at Konigsee saying "Didn't even apologise for making everyone wait!". Dayummm ma'am! Well, in order not to go into fisticuffs and turning this into an ugly experience, I shouted an apology in the bus. There you go. My gang just hung around the car park and ate our sandwiches and grapes which we thought we had time to consume at Konigsee. I was secretly hoping that someone will be late this time and I get to return them a favour but most are almost on time and I am not about to bitch about a couple of minutes late, not that there were...
OK. My take about Konigsee is still a very good one. If you ever visited Salburg and have time to spare, Konigsee is a definite place to go BUT do not go on a tour but instead, stay tehre for a couple of nights to at least be able to enjoy the beautiful view, the crisp air and the serenity both in the dawn and dusk. Take a bour trip while you are there (I am actually saying what I want/would've done) and see St. Bartholomew church up close against the backdrop of the Alps. Oh less I forgotten, DO NOT take the Panorama Bavarian Mountain tour! I am not saying don't take a tour with them, just don't take the Bavarian Mountain tour because I find that the time the tour accord to tourist are not sufficient at all and hence is not worth the value. The tour could have been so much more if they could just extend by at least 1 hour at the Konigsee stop so that tourist could explore a little more than just sitting at the cafes/bars overlooking the lake.
Konigsee, I really hope I could be back to explore and know you more. But until next time, I kinda missed you.
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