We exited the "Romantic Road" after visiting Augsburg and headed into incredibly scenic Bavaria.

Using the timeshare condo at Grainau, near the ski resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, as our base of operations, we saw such Bavarian sights as Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, and Höllentalklamm. These excursions have their own pages.

Here are photos from this lovely area, and from our other Bavarian outings:

München (Munich) • Ettar Kloster (Ettar Abbey)

We spent a day in München. Such a short trip doesn't allow tourists to see everything in this lovely, cosmopolitan city. But we crowded a lot into our limited time.

Of course, any visit to Munich, even out of Oktoberfest season, wouldn't be complete without an oompah band sighting...

(We later did some participatory oompah-ing at the Hofbräuhaus, but [un]fortunately don't have photos of that!)

Our city tour began at the Marienplatz, where we got to see the elaborate Rathaus Glockenspiel in the New Town Hall tower go through its paces...

The most famous church in München is the Frauenkirche (full name is Dom zu Unserer Lieben Frau, "Cathedral of Our Dear Lady"). We didn't go inside, but its exterior dominates the Altstadt (old town) and we got some good photos...

The photo on the right was taken from high up in the Rathaus (town hall) tower, which we climbed. It offers great views of the city, as you can imagine...

Another highlight of our visit was a tour of the Residenz palace...

The Theatine Church is another famous landmark in the München old town...

Some of the most memorable München sights for us were statue-like street performers in the fun pedestrian-only streets of the Altstadt. Since then, we've seen similar acts in other cities, but at the time it was a mesmerizing novelty...

When it was time to bid Germany „Auf Wiedersehen” and head to Austria, our short drive from one country to the other included a stop at a fabulous baroque church, Kloster (Abbey) Ettal.

On the right is a postcard we bought there but didn't mail. Its photos were taken on a sunnier day than we had...there was rain for almost all of our drive.

But we were still quite impressed with the over-the-top architecture and decor...