Tegernsee: Lake, Culture and Mountain Scenery

Lake Tegernsee combines waterside activities with a rich cultural history and hiking trails in the mountains. When choosing your holiday region, you can consider whether you would like to focus on the lake, paths through forests and meadows, or historical themes. You can also factor in travelling by train: Bayerische Regiobahn’s RB 57 runs from Munich Central Station via Holzkirchen to Tegernsee.

Experience the Lake and Mountains

Lake Tegernsee covers around nine square kilometres, is six kilometres long and about one and a half kilometres wide. There are numerous bathing spots around the lake; Lake Tegernsee also meets drinking-water quality standards. A round trip on one of the distinctive Tegernsee boats is one way to explore the lake and its surroundings. If you have different waterside activities in mind for your trip, you can choose between bathing spots and a boat trip to suit your interests.

Further afield in the region, the Wallbergbahn offers a different perspective on the landscape: it takes visitors up the Wallberg, where panoramic views extend across Lake Tegernsee and the Alps. The cable car is a major attraction in the Tegernsee holiday region. Its visitors include local residents, people from the surrounding area and holidaymakers, among them day-trippers, families with children, experienced mountain hikers, nature lovers and paragliders. If you like to include an excursion into the mountains in your holiday, you can take this into account when choosing your destination.

Hiking Trails for Different Kinds of Day

The Tegernsee mountains offer more than 650 kilometres of marked hiking trails. One specific route is the Tegernsee Höhenweg, a section of the 34-kilometre Panorama Trail around Lake Tegernsee. This easy hike follows a ridge about 100 metres above the lake, passing through forests and meadows to Gasse in Gmund. The information about the route and its course can help you consider this trail as a hiking focus in its own right; no walking time is specified.

If you would rather alternate between hikes and other activities during your stay, the region offers a range of other options: bathing spots, boat trips and the Wallbergbahn each offer something different. When choosing your holiday apartment, you can decide whether your trip should focus more on the lake, culture or the mountains, without having to combine the different activities into a set itinerary.

Monastic History and Regional Culture

According to tradition, the history of Tegernsee Abbey dates back to 746. Adalbert and Otkar are said to have founded it; in the Middle Ages, the abbey was an important spiritual and cultural centre. Until 1803, the parish church of St. Quirinus in Tegernsee served as the abbey church of Upper Bavaria’s most important Benedictine abbey. If you are interested in the region’s religious and cultural past, you can encounter two different aspects of its history here: the traditional account of the abbey’s foundation and the parish church’s former role.

Since 1999, the Tegernseer Tal Museum has used 17 rooms and around 850 exhibits from the 14th to the 20th century to showcase the culture and history of a region in Old Bavaria with a long tradition. The Tegernsee art exhibition has been held annually since 1949. Together, the museum and exhibition show that a stay need not be focused solely on nature: you can make cultural topics a specific part of your travel plans and give them room alongside the lake or hiking.

Discover More Destinations

If you would also like to explore other destinations: Erding, Lichtenfels, Kempten, Dingolfing-Landau, Unterallgäu, Starnberg, Rhön and Dachau.

For the broader travel overview: Bavaria.