I took this photo from my hotel balcony last weekend on the evening of our arrival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. We stayed at Hotel Schatten on the Partenkirchen side, and I heartily recommend it. The church you see is Pfarrkirche Maria Himmelfahrt, the Church of the Assumption. The famous Wetterstein Alps are nonexistent.
As I snap the picture, am I disappointed? Not a bit!
It’s a truism that we write what we know. My books come out of my own imagination, of course, but unless I’ve gone to the trouble to feed that imagination with facts, concepts, and experiences, my writing won’t have enough depth to help readers suspend their disbelief. The rocky foundation of a great fantasy world, therefore, is a wide-ranging exposure to the world we all live in. Everything matters, from the tiniest moss to the biggest mountain.
So, when I learned that our trip to Bavaria would be dogged by bad weather, I was thrilled. Anybody can open a coffee table book and look at photos of mountains under blue sky. But how many authors can accurately describe the mountains in rain … mist … snow?
This is the same view by late morning the next day. The bright mist rising out of the trees changes constantly. The nearby Kochelberg and Hausberg hills have put in an appearance. Their light dusting of snow is already beginning to melt.
Late afternoon, and here are the mountains at last. It turns out that we have a stunning view of the Alpspitze, 8622 feet high (2628 m), already starting to don its winter coat of snow. But yesterday, it belonged to the clouds. Not for nothing is this part of the Alps called the Wetterstein–the “weather stone” range.
Photos taken in October, 2011, from the balcony of the Hotel and Gasthof Schatten, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Text and photos copyright 2011 by Clare B. Dunkle.