Konigssee, Part II

If you missed it the first time.... There's a path that goes around the lake, hugging the cliffside, which we decided to take...after much staring.

As one of our group said, "I wanna live there."

I was practicing "framing" a picture. We stood here for a while, so I had plenty of time. I couldn't decide which I liked better, so I posted all of them.

No words.

Here we go, up around the lake....

It was wonderfully still and quiet. Though, I do recall hearing a cuckoo. This is as far as we got before we unanimously decided that beer and food were more important than continuing on.

A handful of us decided to take the hike up to the Ice Chapel.

I don't know the correct term for this, but it's a little prayer house of sorts if one wants to rest while hiking (though it's not all that far from the monastery).

I attempted macrophotography several times during the trip. This is probably my best: some species of skipper rests on a rather bizarre flower.

It was cloudy and rainy all day, but that didn't lessen the beauty any. In fact, it made the place more quiet and imposing. It was as if the mountains were silently watching us from their lofty height. I call this picture "Three Trees."

And if that's Three Trees, this is One Tree.

A zoomed-out version of One Tree.

The Ice Chapel. We thought it was glacial ice, but I think it's just a blob of ice that hasn't melted in many, many years. I wandered across the stream and up toward the ice (despite that the trail ended where I took this picture) until I realized I was in a boulder field. And then I ran back.

We returned to the monastery, soaked and freezing, but happy. We proceeded to spend the next several hours warming up in a beer garden and eating yummy food. (I sure wish I could get a giant plate of three different kinds of pig in the U.S. Two giant slabs of ham, two giant slabs of bacon, and two giant slabs of roast pork. With a dumpling, of course. I almost died of yum.)

Though we did do a little bit more wandering...before retreating to the warm dryness of the beer garden.

Next:  Salzburg