Munich to Lake Chiemse Day Trip

Today we created our own adventure…A train and bike trip! We took our “weekend rental” bikes with us on a regional train and in an hour we arrived at Prien, the main town in Lake Chiemsee!

Lake Chiemsee was formed around 15-20,000 years ago and is the largest lake in Bavaria. It is often referred to as the Bavarian Sea.

There are three small islands on the lake and we visited two of them, Herreninsel and Frauneninsel. These two, along with the third island, Krautinsel, form the municipality of Chiemsee.

We rode our bikes from the train station to the ferry pier, stopping along the way at a tourist information hut for directions and a map. (The above picture is from our map and is courtesy of Margaret Baumgartner|www.vk-mb.com.)

At the ferry pier were were told that bikes were not allowed aboard, so we locked up our bikes :-( Once on the ferry we realized that the Alps surrounded us. Although it was sunny, there was a haze and the outlines of the mountains could be seen - it was different and very pretty none the less.

Our ferry leaving us on Herreninsel.

On the ferry with the Alps as our background.

The island of Herreninsel, (also referred to as Herrenchiemsee) is famous for the Castle Herrenchiemsee built by King Ludwit II and it is not surprising to learn that this castle was modeled in the style of Versailles. The interior contains reconstructions from old etchings and paintings that had long since been destroyed in Versailles.

This is Frauneninsel (island of the woman).
This beautiful island is home to fishermen, nuns and craftsmen.

It is full of flowers, which is why I think it's named "Island of the woman."
It is also home to the Benedictine Abbey Convent and St. Michael's Chapel.

While exploring the island, we wandered into a residential area. We noticed a homeowner up in a tree sawing off some branches. As we began to walked past him, he said something to us. Then, he came down the ladder and walked over to me holding a large branch he had just sawed off. He handed it to me and it was FULL of ripe cherries! YUM! I'd never had Cherrie's that tasted so good!























Here are some more pictures taken around the island:

Later we rode through hills, that only got steeper and higher and before we knew it, we were climbing on a grassy field behind a house way up in these hills looking down over this amazing valley! (Thank goodness for Spinning!) I took in the view carefully, as I figured we'd be dead shortly because; 1) we were trespassing and could be shot or; 2) we were going to fall off this mountain getting down. Thanks to Michael, who found a dirt and gravel trail which we rolled & slid down very fast and wound up right at the train station! Who'd a thunk we were so close?