Hans im Glück

We at Boris‘ Big Ben Brexit Bus Company always try to fulfil the dreams of our customers but sometimes it can be hard when they don’t complete the additional special wishes forms. So it was this morning and only with the vaguest knowledge, tried packing the provisions for today’s “Märchenkönig Fairy Tale Tour”. We just had to assume we would have clients ranging from Vegan to Carnivore, from water to Hard spirits types and then everything in-between – Pepsi or Coke, wheat or lager or dark beer, peaches or plums, balsamic or apple vinegar, Emmenthaler or Camembert. So you simply pack everything from toothpicks to the kitchen sink (yes there was a 20-litre bucket filled with water), from salt to Schnapps glass, from water in 3 categories of fizziness to Pear Schnapps, from a bucket of Vegan potato salad to a slab of South Tyrolean Speck smoked ham.  
 
Then the 80-minute journey up to central Munich for the first pick-up. Nigel, his eldest daughter (#1) and husband (#4), son (#3) before moving further northwards to the airport to collect daughter (#2) and friend (#5). 180° turn and southbound on the motorway, skirting around Munich, a brief leg stretch, coffee to go and snack at the popular day trip village of Stegen at the top of the Ammer Lake. Despite the sun beating down, no time for a swim and piled back in for the last long stretch on normal roads past Landsberg am Lech, Schongau to the hamlet of Hohenschwangau getting there with just enough time to collect the pre-booked guided tour tickets and another quick snack in the car park from the back of the bus.


While the clients took the bus ride up the mountain to the Disney Castle, I watched the world go by at the car park. About 1.5million visitors pass here each year and on a day like today, at the height of the German school holidays, around 6000 a day. There is everything here from the fleets of coaches with Chinese tourists on their Europe in a weekend tours to Morgan Le Mans 62, with GB plates, probably on a long bank holiday weekend outing to check out their secret Euro bank accounts in Switzerland.


A sudden yodel ring tone on my mobile phone – the clients are finished with their tour and despite the threatening thunderstorms over the Tegelberg covered with a swarm of hang-gliders, they want to take a swim. Rattled off a selection of lakes in the area: The Schwansee and Alpsee right next to the castles or the Bannwaldsee with camping and no doubt mass of picnic tables 3 mins away, the Hopfensee with its promenade, the rather kitschy Weissensee, the rather scary meromictic Alatsee with possible Hitler Gold remains or even the largest dam lake in Germany, the Forgensee. Not wanting to have the Dam Busters tune whistled in my ears for the entire drive back to Munich, also suggested the beautiful Plansee, the furthest away and in Austria. Also the deepest (78m 256 feet) and therefore probably the coldest – that will test the British Upper Lip and other parts.


The challenge was taken up and off we set for the 30-minute trip, managing with great skill to avoid all the absent border guards at both the German and Austrian posts. No time for a stroll in the skiing resort of Reutte but at the next valley head northwards again and stop at the bottom of the lake for a group photo before the treacherous 6km drive along the curvy bank of the lake without any crash barriers – more fun in winter with ice on the road, just ask my son.
 
At the head of the lake, we parked, unpacked the picnic and carried it to the water's edge. While most of us unpacked the contents, #1 & #4 (OK OK, daughter Jemma and husband Scott) took the water. They are both marathon types, did one in Barcelona this year, Paris last year and a few others in the UK. They swam out at least 500m to the middle of the lake. Hats off to them and together with a pear schnapps afterwards, also gave Jemma a Bavarian hat. We then set to work with the picnic and by all accounts, it went down well even with the Vegan who liked the potato salad, as well as the carnivores. The odd beer was used to wash it all down with and there followed a wonderful peaceful period of seeing the light disappear, the lake surface like a mirror, total silence but for the odd plop of a stone from a Dam Busters skipping stone attempt.


At one point, I stepped back and watched Nigel so obviously happy at a dream being fulfilled. He has for some 20 years promised to bring all his children to see Munich and do this trip. He did it with Jemma a few years ago and was planning the other two but probably separately – that he had managed to get all three of them in one go and within a few weeks of his 60th birthday, was the icing on the dream cake. Being a day of fairy tales, I thought just as in Hans im Glück (Hans in Luck) from the Grimm’s Fairy Tale, the only thing that could have topped it would have been his mother being at his side. She sadly passed away earlier this year.


Eventually, we headed back in the darkness towards Munich, dodging the border guards yet again and back in safe territory, skirting Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the Zugspitze before the now near-empty motorway. Back in the centre of Munich, the passengers all poured out longing for their beds, particularly #2 & #5 who had spent the previous night at a disco and driven directly to Gatwick for the dawn flight.


Despite having done this tour together in 1989, 1998, 2009, 2015, as we did the clutching farewell, both Nigel and I had moisture in our eyes. A fairy tale day was at an end. I am very privileged to have witnessed it and perhaps just a little, have contributed to it. It was any way my birthday present for a very great friend.


100km down the motorway, unpack the picnic and round up all the empty bottles, fill the bus tank and return it to the garage with some 500km extra on the clock. By that time it was Monday but still had the energy to grab something to eat and enjoy the first alcoholic beer for 24 hours, before crashing into bed with a very big smile on my face.

Some impressions in the Extra Photos.
In the Group Photo, left to right #5,#2, Nigel #3,#1,#4

For my German Friends & Readers, here is a light-sided version of the Dam Busters theme. Should point out that Nigel's surname is the same as the leader of that famous episode in history. A remarkable story, another one that should be remembered and honoured in the context of the time it happened. We have moved on and there should be no wish to return the UK or any other country back to that and previous dark moments in European history.