15th June: South of Munich

Between Munich and the Alps are a number of lakes of all sizes. Our campsite is on one of the smaller ones, about 3 km by 1 km. It’s a lovely location (I’m running out of different words of praise to use) as the photo shows, with Jane swimming in the lake.

The local town is Murnau, quite up-market and beautifully maintained. It was extensively rebuilt following a fire in 1835, although is first documented in 1150. Some of the buildings have external painted decorations that are a feature of Bavaria. This is the town, with the Alps in the background.

Jane’s sister Ruth lives at Feldafing on one of the largest lakes in the region, Lake Starnberg. The lake is very popular for all types of water activities (perhaps not white water rafting) and on clear days the Alps are visible, as in the photo. The boat is an ancient ferry serving Rose Island a few hundred metres off shore.

The town of Starnberg was celebrating its 100^th anniversary of being granted town status, so we went to see some of the festivities. Here’s a traditional brass band, which I wanted to describe as an oompah band, but they didn’t play any oompah type music when we were listening. When is an oompah band not an oompah band? Were more steins of bier required? Would you believe, some oompah bands now play a type of pop music called oompop.

So, family album time: Jane and Ruth, as we walked in the woods next to the lake shore.