The late summer weather attracted thousands of day trippers to the mountains at the weekend.
The state government wanted to direct the flow of visitors with an online ticker.
But little of it was felt.
The autumn sun lured thousands of day trippers into the mountains on Sunday.
There were sometimes long traffic jams on the roads in the Alpine regions - despite the Corona * crisis.
An excursion sticker should actually distribute the visitors better.
But tourism experts hope for better digital solutions in the long term.
Munich / Grainau
- For the people in Grainau * it is the usual weekend picture.
A sheet metal avalanche that rolls slowly or not at all to the Eibseeparkplatz.
Again and again, drivers had to be turned away on Sunday afternoons on their way to the Zugspitzbahn.
The loop around the Eibsee was so crowded that some hikers prefer to put on their masks to be on the safe side.
And those who had enjoyed the view were waiting for block processing at the Farchanter tunnel.
Even the secret route through Farchant has long ceased to exist.
There, the fire brigade blocked roads in town so that the day trippers would not turn across the village.
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On the Eibsee circular route, some of the hikers put on their masks because the crowd at the foot of the Zugspitze was so great.
© dw
It was not only jammed at the foot of the Zugspitze.
At the Herzogstandbahn, visitors had to queue for up to an hour on Sunday lunchtime to get a ticket.
The downhill runs to be reserved in advance were sold out by noon.
The Tölzer Land was bursting at the seams again on Sunday, says Lenggries mayor Stefan Klaffenbacher.
In the Tegernsee valley, it was also jammed for kilometers on the access roads.
"The excursion sticker didn't get us an inch"
The excursion sticker started at Pentecost was supposed to help.
The municipalities post up-to-date information on traffic loads online there.
For the Zugspitz region, warnings were issued on Friday about "very high day-trip traffic" on Sunday.
Likewise in the Tegernsee valley, where visitors were asked to switch to public transport.
The appeals have evidently achieved little.
“The situation has not improved noticeably, especially on sunny weekends,” says Garmisch-Partenkirchen's Mayor Elisabeth Koch (CSU), taking stock of the past few months.
“The big-mouthed excursion sticker has so far not brought us an inch,” she criticizes.
From their point of view, a lot would be gained if the majority of day-trippers didn't come by car.
"But that would require supra-regional concepts."
In the future, tourists could be warned at the motorway exit
The excursion sticker goes back to an initiative of the Tegernsee / Schliersee tourism association.
There, employees are currently still filling in the online overview by hand every weekend, as CEO Harald Gmeiner explains.
After Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (FW) publicly advertised the excursion ticker, accesses had skyrocketed to up to 15,000 a day, he says.
“But now the interest has waned again.” And with up to 70,000 excursionists, locals and non-residents, who walk the streets in the Miesbach district alone on a sunny Sunday, the proportion of those who previously obtained information about the excursion sticker , still very low.
Gmeiner says the ticker can only be part of a larger strategy.
He therefore hopes for the results of the visitor management working group located in the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
For example, it is investigating how a usable algorithm can be developed in the future that uses cell phone and weather data to indicate in real time when which parking space is full.
“It would be ideal to inform the day trippers at the motorway exit via radio, sat nav or app so that they can reschedule spontaneously,” says Gmeiner.
Fear of the spread of the coronavirus is increasing in the Alpine regions
But that remains - still - a dream of the future.
With the upcoming autumn holidays, the next hiking weekend is already waiting.
The mayor of Gaißach (Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district), Stefan Fadinger, sees a certain contradiction: everyone drives in their car so as not to get infected on the train.
But on some narrow climbs it is now so tight at the weekend that people can hardly get out of the way.
This also causes displeasure in the Miesbach district office: the employees worked well above the limit in order to be able to interrupt the chains of infection at all, says a spokeswoman.
And outside?
The traffic jams of the day trippers line up "as far as the horizon".
A similar picture emerged in the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district, as well as in Tegernsee and Schliersee.