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Day 1: Laid-back Vibes and Important Rules

As soon as we start making our way out of Munich, all the stress of travelling and packing begins to disappear. It feels as though the whole of Munich has gathered along the Isar to hang out, barbecue and relax, and those laid-back vibes rub off on the four of us immediately. The route is simply beautiful: just follow the Isar south.

One reason we don’t make particularly rapid progress on this first day (spoiler: the same will be true of the next two) is that Lennart loses his flip-flops. And because he bought them in Iceland and carries them not only on his feet but close to his heart, we turn around and add a few extra kilometres to the trip.

Over the next few days, we also establish a set of rather time-consuming “rules”: 

1. Never ride past a farm self-service stall. There are quite a few of them around the Tölzer Land region. 

2. Never ride past a rope swing by the river. We keep discovering ropes that people have attached to trees along the banks of the Isar. You simply cannot pass one without having a go. 

3. Never ride past a roadside flea market without buying at least one thing.

Day 2: A Rewe Toilet, Geranium Idyll and Wheat-Beer Ice Cream

We spend our first night about 30 kilometres south of Munich, close to the Isar. As we stretch our tarps over the Brommies, we’re attacked by hornets drawn to our head torches – very loud and very scary – but then the rain arrives, drives the hornets away and lulls us to sleep. 

The next morning is dry and breezy. The only sound is the Isar burbling away nearby. We’re just making coffee when something starts brewing in the sky as well. Nils’s rain radar tells us we’d better hurry up and find shelter. What follows is easily our fastest stretch of riding so far, all the way to the Rewe supermarket in Wolfratshausen’s industrial estate. Instead of sitting romantically beside the gurgling Isar, we have cars rushing past us. But there are bread rolls. And an excellent toilet.

We decide we’re going to ride for a full hour without stopping. Twelve minutes later, an Isar rope swing forces us to pull over. After that, though, we make decent progress – until a farm vending machine appears at the side of the road and, in accordance with the rules, we have to stop. Which means a round of surprisingly inventive farm-made ice cream. Our flavours of choice: cheesecake, buttermilk and wheat beer – sweet, salty, bitter and genuinely delicious.

The route is stunning. We northern Germans haven’t spent much time in the Alpine foothills for years, and both the landscape and the architecture – all those pretty farmhouses overflowing with geraniums – feel almost like a film set. And the Isar is just ridiculous. How can a river this beautifully blue and clear flow straight through Munich and then shimmer an even more spectacular icy blue as you head south?

Day 3: Ride, Fold, Enjoy 

Eighty kilometres south of Munich, we sleep beneath our tarps under an almost full moon. We take the following morning slowly. Very slowly. But then, the spot is simply too lovely. It’s too beautiful to leave. Breakfast, coffee, and the feeling that we’ve already been immersed in nature for days. 

When the sun finally rounds the corner of the mountain, it beats down relentlessly. There isn’t a cloud or a patch of shade in sight, so we pedal hard on the Brommies just to create a cooling breeze – before deciding to switch sides of the Isar by the most direct route possible. Crossing the river is just far too much fun when it’s hot. 

Bikes on our shoulders, crystal-clear, cold water around our feet. 

We’re rather underwhelmed by the Sylvenstein Reservoir – a fairly famous photography spot in the Isarwinkel. The water level is very low and the light extremely harsh, so we decide not to bother shooting it. That’s actually fairly representative of our trips: you plan a route around certain images you have in your head, then set off and discover completely different things. Scenes that turn out to be far more interesting than the ones you had imagined beforehand.

Day 4: Descending Metres, Inflatable Ice Cream and Swimming in Gatorade 

The Binsalm sits at 1,500 metres, while Vorderriss down in the valley is at 800 metres. After some buttermilk – served more or less straight from the cowshed – the prospect has us setting off in high spirits. Seven hundred metres of descent without much pedalling, accompanied by a cool breeze and glorious sunshine. 

Considering the length of our daily stages over the past few days, our progress has been pretty terrible. But after the descent, we’re highly motivated to make it all the way to Walchensee today. This time we really are going to put our foot down – except you must never, ever ride past a flea market at the side of a country road. 

So we slam on the brakes, have a rummage around, deliberate for a while and eventually settle on an inflatable rocket ice lolly. 

It actually makes us even more determined to cover the 55 kilometres to Walchensee. One of Germany’s deepest and largest Alpine lakes, it completely blows us away with its Gatorade-blue water. We kick off our shoes and sweaty clothes, inflate our flea-market ice lolly and jump into the wonderfully cool water. How good does it feel to wash away the sweat of the past few days in a lake like this?! 

People gradually pack up and head home. Camping along the shore is strictly forbidden, so – looking slightly out of place – we pitch our tarps among the campervans in the overnight parking area. 

It’s a balmy summer evening, and after all that downhill speed we’ve somehow slowed right down again. Is this the right way to travel? To spend as much time as we do simply seeing what happens? Sometimes everything flows, sometimes it grinds to a halt. But that combination is exactly what makes it special. 

That’s our conclusion at Walchensee: we want to approach our journeys with enough openness to experience and explore whatever comes our way – and we want to do them with the right people. 

They’re what really matters.