Day 20 Seebruck

Mark’s birthday today. We didn’t travel just to celebrate 70 but it worked out rather well.

Weather 8-22

Long post warning there was a lot going on.

Planned on weekend trip with Sean and Michaela to a town called Burghausen which has the longest castle in the world. Then overnight on Lake Chiemsee with a visit to the last of Ludwig II’s palaces on Sunday.

What happened:
Hire car wasn’t there . Seinfeld fans will follow the joke. No worries they say “we’ll give you an upgrade.” Which is very nice, a very large BMW that turns like a boat and needs two parking spaces. Bonus is that it’s automatic and has enormous boot. This is helpful because plan includes a quick visit IKEA to return some especially large items

previously purchased.
Arrived quickly at IKEA which is size of small town. Has a hotel next to it presumably for serious shoppers.
We are told at the entrance that the return staff are on strike. Only the return staff. You can buy not just bring back!
Back to car, repack and head to Burghausen.

Town is about an hour away on the autobahn through beautiful countryside with view of the Alps.

The castle is incredible. It is over 1000 years old, is 1015 metres long, has 6 courtyards and a cafe that ran out of food at 1245.

There’s been a castle on the site since 1051 and it’s grown, waned and grown again.

Stopped at a restaurant for lunch and slightly harassed lady eventually told us they had no food but we could have drinks. Coffee followed and as we were about to leave realised cake did not equal food and people were still hoeing into that. Settled on gelato.

Much stair scaling, parapet peering and wall walking we called it a day and decided to go to Austria.

This is not as exotic as it sounds as the town below the castle is on

the Salzach River that separates Germany and Austria. Had a quick Austrian excursion and crossed back to find real lunch. Very good restaurant looking directly across bridge into Austria. It is notable that Sean had Schnitzel on Toast. This unsurprisingly was a schnitzel between two pieces of white bread. White bread is catoast in Germany. It was covered by about 500mls of a mayonnaise, chilli concoction that made finding it an adventure. Mark ordered “Par Weiner” which as the name implies is 2 Weiner with horseradish and mustard. That’s it. Bern and Michaela rounded out the international flavour of the day by having hot chips. Very cosmopolitan.
Great little town, cobbled streets, old houses, a mini golf course going up a hill and a green coloured lake for swimming.

We were staying in town on Lake Chiemsee about 40 minutes away. The lake is huge, about 14kms long, 80kms in area and only an hour from Munich.

Stayed in very pleasant hotel in Seebruck right on the shores of the lake and next to a Roman archaeological site. The Romans built a settlement here in about 40AD called Bedaium.
They seemed to have left an excellent Italian restaurant where we celebrated Mark’s 70th birthday and agreed to never mention a number again.

Retired happy but weary until the next day’s adventure.