Monday, 20 June 2016
Afternoon
In the afternoon we had our second attempt at the Karwendel cable car, walking up to the station via the derelict Alpenhof Hotel next to the Hotel Post. This hotel has been identified as the location of the fictional chalet school (presumably nobody thinks it would have been the original model for Madge Bettany's school which started out with nine pupils, especially as it could never have been described as a 'chalet' thus undermining the title of the book and series), and as a model for the (much larger) hotel that the school moved into on the Sonnalpe. At the time of Elinor Brent-Dyer's eight-week holiday in Pertisau in 1924 the Alpenhof Hotel would have been the biggest in the village (60 beds).
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| The derelict Alpenhof Hotel (Photo: Marianne) |
I didn't intend to take any photos of it as I don't think the site is right, nor is it the 'chalet', but once I saw it I was even more determined not to take photos as it was very sad to see such a pretty building just being left to rot.
On to the cable car station we walked and were a little less keen than last time to board before we had to, but eventually we did clamber aboard. This time we had some success with the cars starting upward on time and right from the first moment the view was spectacular.
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| Beth on the ride up with the view in the background (Photo: Gary) |
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| The string of cable cars (Photo: Gary) |
We had intended to have 'kaffee und kuchen' (another staple of the fictional Chalet School girls) at the cafe at the top of the cable car but the cafe was shut so, after a few photos and a brief wander around (during which Gary spotted deer in the pine forest), we boarded the next run down.
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| Taking photos |
(Strangely there are only opening windows on one side of the car so most of my photos have been taken on the downward leg when we could take photos without the barrier of the none-too-clean windows.)
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| View over Achensee and Pertisau (left) with Bachau (right) |
The clump of trees in the middle of the following photo surround the Alpenhof Hotel.
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| View of Pertisau |
We wandered home by another route, seeing a little more of the village and ending up at a cafe to finally put a TICK in the 'kaffee und kuchen' box.
Such a lot achieved in one day!
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