July 9th - Salzburg, Austria to Garmish Partenkirchen, Germany - 244 km

Today the roads again were amazing.  The views from the mountain roads and the valley’s were spectacular.  We travelled back and forth through Austria and Germany several times during the day.

I was in the same group today and everyone had a fantastic ride today.  Speed was good through the mountains but traffic in the villages was very busy and the weather was perfect but hot when we are in traffic.

One of our stops for a coffee stop was the place where everyone stopped for a quick break.  It was very busy and koodoos to the one guy who looked after all of us.  So our short break turned into a much longer break in the morning.

Lunch was at a nice restaurant where we were able to get some free wifi and I was able to iMessage the boys which turned out to be about the time that they were getting ready to start work in the morning.  There is six hours difference between Europe and Ontario, Canada which makes it difficult to communicate with family.

This afternoon we took a short cut through a park which happened to be a toll road.  My understanding is that it took about 90 km off our ride.  There was also a lake that we road past and the water was crystal clear you could actually see the fish in the water from the road!!  One of the roads according to the ride book - “the Alpenstrasse (Alpine Road)” is the oldest touring road in Germany mentioned first in 1879.  As it is a German road - the lanes were wider and the speed limit was more generous.

Before supper a few of us went for a walk to downtown Garmisch-Partenkirchen.  Absolutely beautiful - the quaint village was full of restaurants and gift shops.  The buildings have paintings on them and of course in the European style the window boxes are full of beautiful flowers.  Supper was at the hotel and it was a sit down meal which was delicious.