We will be in Innsbruck September 11 this year and were curious about the Zugspitzbahn, the website says it will be closed for maintenance at that time, am I reading this correctly? The Tiroler Zugspitzbahn is the cable car up the Zuspitze, correct?
Revision 07.11.2016 - 25.11.2016
In this period the Tiroler Zugspitzbahn will be closed for essential planned maintenance work.
Is anyone familiar with this ?
Thank you.
That's the Tiroler Zugspitzbahn, a cable car which goes from Ehrwald in Tirol to the Austrian side of the summit.
There is a second cable car from the Eibsee station near Garmisch, which goes to the German side of the summit. That one is operational at the time
Third, there is a cog railway, which goes from Garmisch over Eibsee to the Zugspitzplatt, a ski region a few hundred metres below the summit. From that Zugspitzplatt, there goes a third cable car up to the German side of the summit.
To make things more complicated, there is a fourth cable car under construction, which is to replace the Eibsee cable car in 2017. (And of course, there are even more cable cars for inspection purposes and material transport.)
Oh, and you can go from the German to the Austrian side of the summit by foot. A five minute stroll.
EDIT: Ah, you wrote September. No worries, 07.11.2016 is November. German dates are formatted dd.mm.yyyy.
Thank you! SO, it appears that the Tiroler Zugspitzbahn will be closed then. Do you have the Website for the one on the German side? I am having trouble finding information on some of these. Thank you !
To go from Innsbruck by train, you first go through Garmisch-Partenkirchen before getting to Ehrwald. At Garmisch-P, it is a short walk to the base station for the Bavarian Zugspitzebahn, which takes you past the cable car valley station that takes you directly to the top of the mountain. On the Austrian side, it's a considerable walk or a bus trip to the valley station of the Tirolian Zugspitzebahn. In other words, it's easier from the German side.
Austrian side: http://zugspitze.at
German side: http://zugspitze.de
All the German side cable cars and cog railway have the same operator and same pricing. If you don't want to go up there skiing, it's quite costly, about 40€ per person.
Revision 07.11.2016 - 25.11.2016
Those are non-american dates. If you try to read that as american dates you could be worried that it will be closed from the 11th of July to the 11th of a month numbered 25.
That isn't the case.
These are non-american dates. Most of the world, Europe included, including Austria, read dates as day, month, year; so the time the lift is closed is from the 7th of November through the 25th of November this year.
If you are there in September you will be fine.
Looks like we can go up either side, Germany or Austria. Looking at the websites, it seems that the Austria side has more to offer and may be a better trip? They also seem to have more at the base to do. Has anyone done the snow sledding up there or gone on either of these? I am just trying to decide which to do and how long in advance we need to buy tickets. I am hoping we can just get them when we get there, but, these days it seems like you should do everything in advance when traveling in Europe.
Thanks for all the great information!
About the activities at the base, remember the Bayrische Zugspitzbahn (German side) starts at the city of Garmisch and you have all the activities at the base which are located in Garmisch. These aren't specified at the zugspitze.de site, it would be just too much. Ehrwald on the Austrian side in contrary is a small village so they need to focus all their efforts to draw tourists on their cable car and their website reflects that. For the activities at the summit, you can visit them all regardless which side you came up at.
Snow Sledding ("Rodeln") is based at the Zugspitzplatt, which can be reached from the German base or the summit. http://zugspitze.de/de/winter/berge/zugspitze/rodeln. You can rent a Rodel and helmet at the tourist centre of the Zugspitzplatt for about 10€. Please note rodeln is a summer activity only. In Winter, most of the Zugspitzplatt is reserved for skiing, rodeln is limited to some smaller courses near the tourist centre then. The switch is in May and September so you have to check carefully which activity is available
In the summer season, you don't have to buy tickets in advance. Be sure to have some cash at the summit/Zugspitzplatt. I bet there's only one ATM of some obscure bank which charges a fortune out of you if you draw money from a foreign credit card.
There won't be any sledding in September. The snow doesn't start to accumulate at the summit until October, at the earliest, and I don't think they even consider opening the slopes for winter sports until November (December is more likely).
As noted, Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a large year-round resort. There's no lack of activities on that side of the mountain. I wouldn't exactly call Ehrwald a "small village", but it is a significantly smaller resort.
No need at all to purchase tickets in advanced. There are no advanced purchase discounts, and no reservable seats.
Another addition: When you send a postcard or letter from the small post office at the tourist centre of the Zugspitzplatt, you get a special postmark on your postcard/letter proving "you were there*. It's only open at the time of noon, though. (But I think putting in into the post box will get you the stamp, too.)
There won't be any sledding in September.
Well, the page
http://zugspitze.de/en/summer/mountain/zugspitze/erlebniswelt-gletscher/rodeln-auf-naturschnee
tells that there is summer sledding. In addition, the German site tells that it started on 14th of May.
They take advantage of the last patches of snow that remain after skiing is no longer possible for the season, but I've never seen sledding conditions last into the late summer. Last time I was at the summit of Zugspitze in August, there was no snow at all.
