A few weeks ago, my dad, my sister and I went on a trip to Germany and Italy. We flew in to Frankfurt in American Airlines Boeing 777-200 Business Class from Dallas to Frankfurt and spent a day in the Frankfurt area. We had rented a car at the Frankfurt airport and then drove down to the Edelweiss Lodge and resort in the southern German town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. We stayed at the Edelweiss resort only one night (it was nice but I’m not going to give a full review since it’s a niche property only available to people with an affiliation with the U.S. military). The next morning we went to the Zugspitze and I wanted to give a brief Zugspitze review.
How To Get To The Zugspitze – By Train
There are two main ways to get to the Zugspitze – there is a train line that can take you from the valley below up to the top of the mountain. This was how we went to the mountain. The Bayerische Zugspitzbahn has a few stations on the German side, and I believe there is also a train line from the Austrian side. There is actually a station within walking distance of the Edelweiss resort, but we instead decided to drive a bit to the Grainau station.
The ride takes about 25-30 minutes and the train comes about every 30 minutes. The first part of the train journey was aboveground, and the rest is in a tunnel. You get to the Zugspitze Glacier Plateau train station at the top and are in a structure nearly on top of the mountain.
On Top Of Germany – Zugspitze Restaurant, Post Office and More
When you arrive at the top of the Zugspitze, there is a large complex of buildings that are up on top of the mountain. Standing up there, it kind of make me wonder how on earth did they get all this stuff up here! 🙂
Of course there are several large observation decks that give 360 degree views of the mountains and the valleys below. But there is also a museum, a post office and a couple of restaurants. I didn’t realize until I got up to the top that the border between Germany and Austria runs through the Zugspitze. As we were walking around on top of the mountain, there was a line that marked the border. There are also actually ways to get both up and down to both Germany and Austria, which made me wonder exactly how that worked in the days before the advent of the Schengen Zone.
How To Get To The Zugspitze – By Cable Car
We had lunch in one of the restaurants (on the Austrian side) that has full panoramic views of the Zugspitze. The lunch itself was nothing special (it was buffet style – I had a bratwurst). After being up on top of the mountain, we were ready to head back down. Rather than taking the train back down, we took the cable car down to Eibsee (on the German side). There is actually another cable car that goes down to Austria, but since our car was in Germany, that wouldn’t have made much sense for us :-). The cable car ride took about 10 minutes and was pretty crowded. The cable car station is also on the train line, so if you need to get back to a different train station (as we did), it’s no problem – we just walked out of the cable car station and across the parking lot to the train line and waited for our train back to Grainau.
The Bottom Line – Zugspitze Review
I’m always a sucker for “best of” or “highest” or other superlatives, so it was a fun trip to the Zugspitze – the highest point in Germany. If you’re in southern Germany or western Austria, I’d say that it’s definitely worth a visit. You have a few different options for getting to and from the top of the Zugspitze – you can even hike up if that’s your bag. It was a great day trip for us.
Have you been to the Zugspitze before? What was your experience like? Leave it in the comments below
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
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