Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a small ski town in southern Bavaria. It’s an interesting little place in that up until 1935 it was actually two different towns. To the chagrin of each of the mayors, Hitler forced the two towns to merge in 1935 in anticipation for the 1936 Winter Olympics. If you were to visit today you would notice that the two sides of town are still very different. The Garmisch side is very modern with plenty of shopping with the Partenkirchen side being more traditionally old German. For the purposes of this article though, it is nestled just north of the Zugspitze – the highest mountain in Germany.
Breathtaking views
I don’t know how to put it any better than saying the Zugspitze is badass. It’s one of the few places in the world that you can get too pretty easily where you get to overlook an entire country. On a good day allegedly you can see Austria, Switzerland and Italy all at once. It is absolutely breathtaking. There is a panoramic view restaurant where at any given time you could be the highest person drinking a beer in Germany. Altitude wise that is, for anyone who got a brief giggle about “highest.” There is also skiing/boarding for 6 months, hiking the rest. There are 3 glaciers, sledding, and hell there is even an igloo restaurant you can go into up there. (I don’t recommend doing this during the winter. Not a lot of good ventilation so our experience was that it smelled pretty bad to say the least.)
So how do you get up there?
Easy, the Zugspitze cable car! Back in the old days leading up to 2017 you would have to take a train from the middle of GP (abbreviated because it’s annoying to type the whole town name, and the people in the Partenkirchen side feel slighted when people refer to it as only Garmisch) to another train that cuts up through the mountain, and finally to a lift to get you to the pinnacle. It’s cool – especially the mountain train part – but very time consuming. Alternatively you could take the train from the town to the Eibsee cable car, but that system only allowed something like 300 people up per hour. Also time consuming.
In 2015 ze Germans began construction on a new cable car system, the Seilbahn Zugspitze. It was finished at the end of 2017 and it is a technical marvel that belongs in the same discussion as the Chunnel. You can read about it HERE but the shorthand version would be it is the longest unsupported cable length at a little over 10,500 feet. That’s bananas.
Zugspitze, a walk-through
The address of the train station that will bring you to the Zugspitze is Bahnhofstraße 31 in GP. Very conveniently there is a parking lot located across the street (HERE). It’ll take a few minutes to get over there because you have to walk under the train station to get there, but once you do walk into the station and there will be a box office selling tickets. If you are not skiing you want to purchase a Zugspitz-Rundreise (round-trip) ticket. As of September 2018 the price is 56€ per ticket. You can also purchase them ahead of time online HERE. Once you have your ticket the fun starts.
Inside the station you can pick up a map of the area which also has times listed for the train departures. I would recommend getting to the train earlier than later, as it is also used by skiers to get up the mountain. As soon as you get on find a good comfortable spot and hunker down. There are several stops along the way and the train will get VERY crowded as there are several lifts along the way. Take the train to the Grainau station, at which point you’ll need to hop off and get on to the Zugspitze line. My memory is a little fuzzy but I believe the next stop is Lake Eibsee which is where you’ll need to get off for the mega lift. Trust me, you can’t miss it. Unfortunately there’s a short walk to the station, so watch your footing if you’re there in the winter.
Now that you’re inside don’t wait around, go through the little gates and get in line immediately. The lift takes 100+ people every 10-15 minutes but the line/crowd can get very long with all the skiers and snowboarders. I would recommend layering your clothes as it can’t get a little warm waiting around. I would also recommend hugging the wall/windows on the left as you wait. When the lift doors open you can take the inside track beating people inside, which is important to get a good spot in front to enjoy the spectacular view! The lift whisks you up in about 15 minutes so take it in.
At the top just wander around as there are a lot of different places to hang out and take pictures. My favorite was the view on the south side of all the peaks around you. It really is beautiful so hopefully you get lucky with a clear day. There are signs everywhere pointing around. Somewhere there’s a door to take you inside and down some hallways that will get you to the restaurant. I highly recommend grabbing a beer from the buffet and just hanging out for a bit. From there you hop on small indoor lifts to get you around to different parts of the mountain. The skiing looks absolutely incredible, definitely a bucket list item! There’s also a little cash bar on the actual peak somewhere. Grab another drink and find a seat. Life is good.
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