Berchtesgadener Land Roadtrip

A Story about a one day roadtrip to the south-east corner of Bavaria, the beautiful landscape of Berchtesgadener Land area.

My friend Ali and I met at 4.30am at a parking lot. I didn't catch a lot of sleep but was still feeling great looking forward to some exciting spots.

The trip was already of to a good start when we drove by the first mountains around 5.45am and the full moon was still lighting up the peaks a little and the atmosphere was bending the first light and softly filled up the shadows on the mountain faces. We unfortunately didn't have time to take pictures of that since we wanted to be at our first stop for sunrise. We arrived at Lake Hintersee around 625am.

Lake Hintersee was a lot like I anticipated but also very different. The mountains that surround the lake are a lot bigger than they look on most pictures I've seen and the lake is actually smaller as I expected it to be.

We started shooting at the tiny piers for paddle-boats you can rent in the summer. We went a little south on the lakeside to take photos of some rock constellations some of them with trees on it. We pretty much spent the whole time around that area until the sun was fully up.

When we had some breakfast we went even further down the lake and ended up at an area where we found some of the water to still be frozen and a really beautiful Bavarian home. Right after we jumped back into the car to go all the way up and stroll along the river that feeds the lake. In the summer you can see animal feedings and watch eagles here!

It must have been 9am by the time we left and went to our next stop which was Ramsau to shoot the Parish Church of St. Sebastian. A fairly popular photography spot if you are already in that area.

We got some food in Berchtesgaden and went on to our next location which was the pilgrimage church of Maria Gern. This little church is sitting up high above Berchtesgaden. It is such a great location because you have mountains like the Watzmann (second highest mountain in Germany!) and the Jenner in the background. If you walk up the mountain behind it you can also shoot the church from a high angle and have some farms and alpine style houses behind it.

Our last stop was the Wimbach-ravine. We hiked up the mountain and explored the area above the ravine first. There were some interesting cliffs and roots and we got some great long exposures. When we were done capturing all of that we went into the ravine and came out with some nice shots after.

All in all this trip was great success and has totally been worth it! I would recommend this area to anyone who loves the outdoors and nature. Let me know in the comments if you've ever been here and what your favorite place is!