If you’re ever in Munich and find yourself wanting to get out of the city, I highly recommend spending one day to explore Bavaria. Bavaria is considered the largest state in Germany and has many options for day trips, including Salzburg, Neuschwanstein castle, and Nuremberg. While all of those are excellent options that I will one day try, when I visited Munich with my sister and cousins, we decided to go to Dachau, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and Mittenwald. Keep reading for details on my experience in each place.
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Transportation
The first step in getting outside of Munich is trying to figure out how to get there. Luckily, Germany makes this easy by offering the Bayern ticket, which is a regional day ticket for Bavaria. At a price of 25 euros for second class, one could have unlimited train and bus travel within the Bavarian region from 9 am to 3 am the following day. What makes this even better is that each additional person in your group is only an additional 7 euros. For our party of four, we paid 46 euros for the entire day.
To buy the ticket, simply go to one of the ticket machines and follow the instructions for English, or whatever your preferred language is. From there, follow the instructions to purchase the Bayern-ticket, enter the number of travelers, the class level you want, date of travel, and then pay. Once the ticket is printed, write down the names of all of the people traveling with the ticket and you’re done! Since I had done my research on train times, all we had to do was find the platform from the big screens and go to where our train would be departing from.
Dachau Concentration Camp
Since I’m somewhat of a history nerd, particularly from WWII, I knew that a visit to Dachau was a must. I wanted to see, in person, the horror of what happened there; not to glorify this atrocity in any way, but to remember the many people that died. You could read about it and see pictures online, but if you see it in person, the impact is so much greater.
Once we got off the train, a bus took us on a ten minute ride to the entrance of Dachau concentration camp. The signs posted throughout the camp summarized all that occurred in each location. The pictures below show what I experienced as I tearfully walked around the concentration camp.
We visited for about an hour, then made our way back to the train station for our return to Munich. Once in Munich, we waited for our train to the next destination.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen
When I was researching ideas on where to visit outside of Munich, I messaged one of my favorite travel bloggers at Happy to Wander, who lives in Munich. She suggested two small towns less than two hours from Munich since they are charming yet relatively unknown to tourists.
Once we arrived and departed the train station, we immediately noticed how much colder the temperature was in this region of Germany. We walked a few blocks and arrived to the main street, which had a Christmas market set up. While my cousin caught up with a friend who happened to be there also, I enjoyed a drink called Schneeflocke, a yummy variation of glühwein. The picturesque setting among the mountains was breathtaking. See the pictures below to see more of this quaint town, the Christmas market, and the people enjoying winter.
Mittenwald
After getting our fill of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, we headed back to the train station for our next stop: Mittenwald, which was just a short twenty minute train ride away. Upon exiting the train station, we noticed that the train station was set amongst the mountains and was so beautiful. Since the town was even smaller than our previous stop, it was not hard to find the main street.
Unfortunately, we had just missed the Christmas markets by one week. Luckily, there was one stand open where I could get my fill of gluhwein. Locals were scattered about along the quiet street as they socialized in the crisp air. Because we were all craving Italian food, we found a restaurant called Osteria Veneta Mittenwald where we were some of the only customers there for dinner. See below for pictures of this charming town.
One meal and food coma later, we meandered back to the train station to head back to Munich. These little towns in Bavaria proved to me that there is so much more to Germany that I need to eventually explore.
Those are fabulous pictures Janae! Did you try any bavarian cream desserts?