Germany & Austria Travel Articles

Mountains in every direction, surrounding deep blue lakes ... Storybook villages with timbered chalets ... Window boxes overflowing with colorful flowers ... Cows with huge bells, grazing in fields of wildflowers ... Elaborate painted houses ... Fairytale castles ... Huge mugs of beer ... Bowls of goulash soup ... A Mozart concerto ... An oompa band in a crowded beer hall ... These are just a few of the sights, tastes and sounds we've enjoyed in the alpine areas of Germany and Austria, to the south and east of Munich. Our family has visited this part of Europe seven times over the past 15 years, in every season of the year. We've experienced alpine cities, towns and villages and have stayed in hotels and apartments. These days we're...

The Bavarian Forest is an almost unknown area of Central Europe. Tucked away in the south east of Germany, it is part of the largest range of forested mountains in the region and the largest area of wilderness between the Atlantic and the Urals. The autobahn from Frankfurt to Vienna passes along the Danube Valley, within view of these mountains, but few visitors turn off to explore the dense forest, tumbling streams and pretty villages. Indeed, for most of the second half of the twentieth century, the roads up into the mountains came to a "dead end" at the Iron Curtain - the border with Czechoslovakia, as it was called then. Partly because of its remote location and the fact that the border prevented through traffic for decades, this...