The next part of this adventure sees a visit to the town of Kempten, followed by a trip into the Bavarian wilderness and finally resting on the top of a cliff for the evening. Join me for more expired film adventures in Bavaria.
Continuing on the theme of train, bus and any other public transport available, this post sees me head south west of Munich to the town of Kempten. After a leisurely lunch we head towards the Allgau region of Bavaria and finally end up staying (completely unplanned) in an amazing hotel perched on the top of a cliff overlooking the Alps and Austria.
All shots taken on my NIkonos V camera and a roll of expired Kodacolor 400 film.
The town of Kempten (population: c.62,000) in relation to Munich. You can zoom in and out of the map.
Kempten has some really nice architecture.
The first photograph below is St.-Mang-Kirche, an evangelical church.
St. Lorenz Basilica (the middle shot below) is right in the middle of Kempten.
The last (right) building houses the town hall.
A surprisingly sharp photograph taken from a bus of Nesselwang, a small town of c.4,000 in the Ostallgäu region of Bavaria.
Whilst not related, I quite like how these photos sit alongside each other.
Through the viewfinder (although the actual image was taken with the big beer tank behind it).
The location of the Hotel Burg Falkenstein in the most breathtaking landscape ever, right on the border with Austria and with (distant) views of Schloss Neuschwanstein.
Panoramic view of the hotel from the top of the Burg Falkenstein. One of the shots (the wider one) was taken with my phone to show true panoramic view (sometimes I wish I owned a panoramic film camera again!).
Fun fact: in the second photo below just behind the hill on the top right of the photo is Neuschwanstein Castle, although you can’t really make it out in the shot.
The view from Burg Falkenstein (the ruins and the hotel) was breathtaking. You can see right across the Alps and into Austria. It is hard to record this on 35mm film and I did wish I had my large format camera with me!
I was also surprised how different all these photographs of the same/similar scene are. It is amazing how quickly weather at this altitude changes.
Some last shots of Pfronten-Steinach (that is a word and a half to pronounce!) before our next adventure up a mountain.
Overall observations
I really enjoyed this part of the trip, it was a really interesting contrast between the city of Kempten and the Allgau region of Bavaria. It gets very rural very quickly as you go south from Munich in all directions. I am very lucky to have the Alps so close and so many different views of this mountain range. That being said, part of me did long for having my large format camera gear with me as it really was an injustice to capture these amazing views in 35mm.
I highly recommend this part of south western Bavaria!
More in this series coming….see you next time,
Neil
