Field Trip Troopers

Travel, Education, Lifestyle Blog

Off the Beaten Path: Bernau am Chiemsee, Germany

| Jenn, Off the Beaten Path

After a nearly perfect morning in Venice on Tuesday, we realized that we had checked off all our must see and dos on the island. Simultaneously, we realized that the heat, crowds, slow internet, and aggressive mosquitoes were making daily life less enjoyable.

So we scoured the map in search of the perfect destination on the road between Venice and Paris, one that boasted decent internet, cooler temps, AND zero mosquitoes.

At the same time, we have started to feel nostalgic lately about our seven months traveling in Europe as a family. And one place that had topped everyone’s list of favorites was Bernau am Chiemsee, Germany.

We happened on Bernau serendipitiously the day after Christmas 2017. Looking for a quick, cheap overnight camper stop, we found a highly rated €14 a night spot through an app we use.

The camper stop is located in the nondescript parking lot of a racquet/athletic club. And we had planned on a quick overnight stay. But after a delicious dinner at the club’s café, we decided to stay another night. Then another.

In the end, we stayed 5 days, using Bernau as our anchor point as we visited Berchtesgaden, Oberammergau, and Salzburg. In fact, we enjoyed our time so much that we decided to take a short detour to stay in Bernau overnight on our way from Denmark to Croatia back in April.

So, as we searched for the perfect pit stop on our route back to Paris, I jokingly suggested, “Bernau would be a perfect solution!” Tall man plugged it into Google maps and, to our surprise, it only added two hours to our trip even though it looked totally out of the way. There was added bonus as well. The German roads would be toll-free. The decision was quickly made – not the norm with my husband – and the plan set.

The next morning, the kids were ecstatic to find out we were headed back to Bernau. And we had our “usual” – schnitzel, spätzle, krautsalat, kaiserschmarrn and vanilla ice cream with hot raspberry sauce – at the club. The weather is warmer this time of year and the Biergarten was open for a lovely al fresco, or im freien, meal.

On our way out, I asked at reception if they had a rock climbing instructor we could hire for their climbing wall, if the instructor could teach kids, and how much equipment and instruction would cost. He told us to come back in the morning at 9, explaining cryptically that the Seniors Group would help. To be honest, at that point I wasn’t sure if he had understood my request or not.

Nonetheless, at 9 a.m., we entered. The owner, Ralph, fitted the kids with shoes and harnesses, took us into the rock climbing gym, and introduced us to the Seniors Group. The group leader, Gerhart, quickly gave some safety instructions and then climbed the wall to set up the belay line. While he was climbing, I joked to Little Trooper Too, who struggles with a bit of acrophobia, that if a 65-year-old could climb like that, he could too. We found out later that that nimble 65-year-old is 81!

We had an amazing adventure with the Seniors group. After Tall Man – who couldn’t resist harnessing up after seeing how much fun the kids were having – finished his second climb, he remarked, “I want to be climbing at 81, too!” Personally, I just want to climb like Gerhart!

Though certainly picturesque, Bernau Am Chiemsee likely doesn’t make even the deep cuts of most travel books. But its relative anonymity – at least to foreigners – helps us connect with people in ways that we don’t nearly as readily in ‘destinations’ like Venice.

Unexpected experiences off the beaten path, such as these in Bernau, have been some of our highlights.

Failure to Launch

| Jenn

Today marks six months since we gave away, threw away, or packed in a storage container nearly all of our possessions. We loaded our minivan, Rosie, and the newest addition to our family, Daisy the Space Trailer, with four carry-on bags, four tech bags, four quick grab overnight backpacks, camping gear, art supplies, a ton of books for Worldschooling, two kids, one dog, a mom, and a dad.

Our “amazing trip” launch on that day six months ago went about as poorly as possible. As anyone who has ever towed a trailer knows, backing up should be avoided. Not only had we put ourselves in a parking situation where we needed to back up, but we were also in a wicked narrow, Boston underground parking lot with very little room to navigate. It took fifteen minutes of wriggling Rosie and Daisy forward, back, right and left to make it out of the parking spot.

Now, optimistic Jenn wants to cheerfully say that this is what happened next: “Luckily, we noticed that the rooftop luggage bag and the bike on the trailer were too tall to make it through the garage door. We immediately stopped and were able to safely get them off and through the garage door.” Tell-it-how-it-really-happened Jenn will tell you: “Next we barely avoided total destruction of our rooftop gear and Tall Man’s bike. We had to unpack the luggage and the bike and walk them through the garage while dodging traffic. Then, looking like true Beverly Hillbillies, we loaded everything back up at the curb outside our building, treating the busy lunch hour passersby to quite a show.” Forty-five minutes after initial take off we finally left our former home in the rear view mirror.

The triumphant feeling was short lived. We made it three-quarters of a mile away to Sommerville, Massachusetts, when we saw sparks trailing behind us and realized our hitch was dangerously low to the ground. We couldn’t continue driving. We had to pull into a hotel not even a mile from the building we had just moved out of and try to figure out a solution. We were there for four days, blowing through our first month’s travel budget in the first week! After shifting the bikes to the trailer and taking a third of our made-the-final-cut prized possessions to the Salvation Army, we were able take off once again.

The story of how we ended up in a hotel parking lot with a precariously overloaded trailer began in May, 2017. After a lifetime of dreaming and years of negotiating with (or breaking down) my husband, Tall Man, we agreed on a six-month “full time traveling pilot program” that would commence on August 9th of that year. The program would be evaluated after three months, using a rubric based (not in order of importance) on money spent, educational gains for the children, the strength/improvement of nuclear and extended family relationships, and a rating of individual family members’ satisfaction. Based on the results of the evaluation we would decide whether to continue traveling or to find a permanent home somewhere in the United States and transition the kids back to regular school in January. (The part about the rubric and the evaluations should be read in Tall Man’s voice. If you don’t know Tall Man, read it in either a stern teacher’s voice or a British accent–your choice. That gives you a glimpse into Tall Man’s personality.)

To give you a little insight into my personality, I’m the type of person who will write a minute-by-minute schedule for visiting a theme park or type, print, and email a detailed schedule, along with shopping and packing lists, for an overnight camping trip. You might assume that a planner such as myself–who has had a lifetime to think about where she would go if she could travel for an extended period of time–would have a ready-to-go travel plan (or at least a rough itinerary) tucked away for an occasion like this. You would be wrong. I was caught completely off guard when the opportunity presented itself. Much like the politicians who had eight years to come up with a healthcare plan, I had nothing. Now not only did I need to make a travel plan that would comply with “the evaluation rubric,” I also had to help the kids finish the school year, pack everything we own, AND figure out how to make the best use of my “six-month pilot program.” The pressure was on.

I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty of the chaos of packing and planning, but we sorta left without much of a plan–which is very unlike me, but becoming the “new” me. So far this spontaneous planning has worked well. In fact, once we got past the accidental four-day hotel stay and repacking fiasco, it has worked much better than expected.

Not to spoil the ending of this story, but about three weeks into the pilot program Tall Man looked at me and said, “I’m not sure how we are ever going to go back to normal life.”