In Germany, a Heart Needs a Second Chance

Back in 2015, Christine and I had had a limited and not-so-memorable stop in Germany, when we spent a couple nights in Munich at the start of a three-country excursion. To be fair, we’d probably made a couple missteps in Munich: our hotel was near the train station, for one—yes, a convenient place to be for easy-in, easy-out access, but certainly not the prettiest part of town. To find the charm, we had to walk several blocks through some of Munich’s grittier neighborhoods. Second, our one full day in the city was a Sunday, when many of the shops were closed. Still, we visited the world-renowned and iconic Hofbrauhaus, listened to charming street music, awed at its ancient glockenspiel, and day-tripped to Dachau to tour the mysteries and horror of its WWII concentration camp.

On this return trip to Germany, we wanted to see some more of Germany, and we wanted to do things a little differently: rather than traveling by train as we’d always done before, we wanted to rent a car and turn this into a road trip, something I’ve become more and more comfortable doing in these last few years. We stopped at the Dachau Concentration Camp for a couple hours—we were with my brother Jeff this time, and we all thought this was something he shouldn’t miss, even though, for Christine and I, once was more than enough. It was, of course, a sobering way to begin the trip, but put into perspective the sad juxtaposition between the world’s beauty and its horrors.

Because, from there, we stopped at the Neuschwanstein Castle, the stunning, fairy-tale-lifted marvel sitting in the lush green doorstep to the Alps. We ventured to the center of the dizzying Marienbrucke Bridge, spanning an ancient gorge hundreds of feet below, for striking and panoramic views of the castle. In just our first few jarring hours, we’d already set eyes on the wild spectrum of what Germany had to show us—the harmonic beauty of manmade creation with natural wonder on one end, and on the other end, the grotesque barbarism of humanity’s very worst instincts.

From there we drove another hour to our first home base, the charming villages of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, situated in the heart of Germany’s Bavaria and shadowed by Germany’s highest peak, the Zugspitze. We’d rented a beautiful two-bedroom apartment, modern and open, with a balcony view of the town and the mountains and the sky. I spent the next few mornings out here, drinking my coffee out on the balcony, the air cool, almost chilly, even in July.

We tried a few varieties of schnitzel in town, sampled schnapps, and hiked the mighty Parchnachklamm gorge, passing first through the old Olympic village and ski jump (1936 winter Olympics). We followed the glacial river into the natural stone architecture of the gorge, the slicing water a wildly vibrant blue, as though lit from its own energy, its deafening roar drowning out our voices in a mist of spray and rainbows.

Christine and I then succumbed to one of our occasional road arguments, which sometimes happens when she get particularly tired and overwhelmed. So let me skip ahead to the next part.

On the other end of the gorge, high up on a precipice, we had snacks and coffee at an outdoor restaurant, sitting at a picnic table with an endless view and the distant clang of cowbells. We rested and caught our breath, decompressed, and readied ourselves for the descent. Later that afternoon, after grocery shopping and another rest, we drove to Lake Eibsee, a quiet and magical lake on the outskirts of Garmisch. Then, in the evening, tired but feeling good, we ate dinner in the apartment—pizzas and cheeses and meats, beer and wine. It’s grown to be our favorite type of meal in Europe: low key, low stakes, enjoying each other’s company and enjoying our apartment. Restaurants are great, of course, and a chance to experiment and sample and hopefully step outside one’s comfort zone, but for us, not every night. Breaking up the meals at restaurants with these slow-paced evenings at “home” have come to be a favorite way to punctuate a full day of travel and exploration.

The next day brought us to the nearby town of Mittenwald, another cute German village with a neaby gorge hike. This hike felt a little different than the previous day’s, in that walkway scaffolding had been built high above the gorge, giving visitor’s a unique bird-s eye view of the dramatic cliffs and powerful water. The rain held off for most of the afternoon, but grew steadier on our walk back to town. We stopped for much-needed coffee, warming ourselves from the inside out, then returned to our apartment to get ready for dinner for more pork knuckle and schnitzel and, of course, schnapps. By now we were into our third night, the travel cobwebs finally shaken off, the jet lag finally receded. We were in the sweet spot at last.

The next day we left Germany for one of our favorite countries in all the world , Austria, before circling back into Germany for a visit at Adolf Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest hideout, and then back to Munich. The Eagle’s Nest, though, was completely and utterly socked-in with dense, eerie fog. It ruined the views, but maybe it added something to its creepy and cruel history. It was as though the shuttle bus to the summit had picked us up in 2024, drove through this impossible wall of fog, and deposited us on the other side in 1944.

We watched young German soldiers march out of the fog, as though materializing out of time itself. It was some kind of retreat, we guessed, maybe even something required of all soldiers, this day of remembrance and warning. We rode an ornate gold elevator to through the rock to the pinnacle of the retreat, just as Hitler himself and his many guests had done not that long ago. The elevator was gaudy and showy, something desperate about it, even Trumpian. I couldn’t wait to get off.

We toured the compound and took photos out on the veranda, in the dining hall in front of an ornate fireplace, the stonework chipped at the edges where, once upon a time, soldiers from the 101st had used their knives to hack away a few small souvenirs.

After the trip, back home, I looked through some historical black and white photos of the Eagle’s Nest back in its heyday, photos of Hitler conversing with someone while sitting on the heath of the fireplace, exactly where we had stood just a few days before. Another photo of Hitler sitting out on his veranda, the photo taken from the same angle that I’d taken my photo, my brother positioned—coincidentally—almost where Hitler was sitting in that photo. Image after image, looking at these photos side-by-side, how eerily they lined up with one another, as though echoes. A reminder that none of it was all that far in the past after all—Dachau, Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest compound, countless other reminders and evidence left all over Europe, scars that—upon further inspection—may not be quite as healed and healthy as we once, not very long ago, believed.