From the moment we started talking about doing this, though, I had a bad feeling about it. You see, I can't stand heights. But, I wanted to conquer my fear.
I also was nervous about the baby. But, everyone we talked to kept assuring us that it was fine. So, I had my checklist: blankets, pacifiers, etc. I wanted to make sure that we didn't do anything to hurt the baby's ears, and I have a perpetual need to make sure he is warm enough.
We learned some serious lessons that I would like to pass along. First of all, there are two ways to get to the top. Both involve catching the Zugspitzbahn (train) in Garmisch. Then, you can either disembark at Eibsee station, take a look at an amazing lake, and then take a really long cable car ride up to the top OR you can take the train further to Zugspitzplatt and take a shorter cable car ride up.
My thoughts were that we should stop at the lake on the way up, and then take the longer train ride down the mountain. It was recommended that, either way, we not take the long cable car ride down the mountain, because it might hurt the baby's ears.
Bad choice. We should have taken the short cable car ride BOTH WAYS. If you are in any way at all afraid of heights, do not take the long cable car ride. In fact, you can drive to Eibsee, so you can make the lake a totally separate trip for yourself, and have time to really enjoy walking around there.
From the second we started going up the mountain on the Eibsee cable car, I wanted to fall crying on the floor with my baby. I thought it was horribly scary. I think I was the only one, though.
Also, by the time we caught the cable car, clouds had rolled in. About halfway into our scary trip up, we could not see a thing, because we were entirely surrounded by clouds. I don't know if it was worse that I couldn't see anything or not, but it wasn't a good feeling.
So, we got to the top. Jackson was doing great, Mom was not liking it at all. There is a restaurant and cafe at the top, so we thought we would stop for a drink. The service was terrible, however, and I was getting antsy at the top, so we decided to just leave and descend the mountain. Besides, we could not see anything as the clouds were entrenched at this point.
We took the shorter, far less scary cable car ride down to the train station at the Zugspitzplatt. Sigh of relief. There was a glacier, a little church, a wonderful cafe, and, oh yes, rain turning into snow. Sigh. This was where you could supposedly get a great view, but we were not taking the baby out in the rain, and, again, no view because of clouds.
The train ride down would have been fantastic, but this is where Jack decided he had had enough. And, where Mom started to feel like a horrible failure for ever bothering to take her child up a mountain. Jackson lost it and screamed for most of the ride down. Sorry to all those trapped on the train with us.
So, moral of the story is this. If you don't like heights, still attempt the trip, but on the much shorter cable car ride. If you have a baby, really think long and hard about it. Either way, make sure there are NO CLOUDS in the sky when you decide to go. It was 47 euros per person. Ridiculous.
Here is the view from our hotel room (Zugspitze is the peak all the way to the left):
Here is what we could see from the bottom of the short cable car platform once the clouds had rolled in:
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