The Alps, December 2015 — Leyla Rose Writes

Happy new year!

I came back to Germany mid-December full of excitement and anticipating the famed Christmas atmosphere, but I guess I wasn’t good this year because my wish of seeing snow falling didn’t come true.

But, this was made up for by the highlight of my new year’s trip: the Alps.

The last few days of 2015 were spent in Munich with day trips exploring the Alps. Getting out of bed at 3am in the morning just to get there in time to catch the sunrise, walking around in -10°C until I couldn’t feel my feet because I got my boots in Primark, taking a swig and discovering that our bottle of water was now a bottle of ice.. completely worth it.

30th December took us to Heiterwanger See (Lake Heiterwang) in Austria. This is hands down the most beautiful place on earth I’ve ever been to. We were there from sunrise at about 7.30am until the sun started to shine through the clouds at 2pm. This was probably my favourite moment, because the sun completely transformed the whole place, lighting up the edges of the surrounding snow-covered mountains and making the frozen lake glisten. You know those moments where you’re stunned into silence? It’s a place of such mind-blowing beauty that makes you feel very small. All you want to do is sit there for ages taking the view in.

No photograph could ever do it justice, but here are a few that I took:

Then on the 31st December, we went to Eibsee, which is a lake in Bavaria, Germany. This lake is directly beneath Zugspitze, which is the highest point in the country. Our wallets weren’t happy with the idea of going to the top of Zugspitze, but that was alright because it turned out to be super misty and we wouldn’t have been able to see anything anyway. Eibsee is far more touristy than Heiterwangersee and the trains that get there are crammed with red-faced skiers in neon outfits. Although the views aren’t as stunning, it’s still a seriously beautiful walk around the lake which takes about two hours (or four, if you’re travelling with a bunch of photographers!) I don’t know why I didn’t take as many photos here and I’m kind of beating myself up about it now.