Notes from the Road:
Munich to Salzburg

George Butterfield

Back to Bavaria

Many years ago – about 50 of them, in fact – the bicycling world of Butterfield & Robinson began in Starnberg, Germany. This is Bavaria—postcard-perfect Germany—a land of sweeping mountains, sparkling lakes, timbered houses, lederhosen, felt hats, and strapping young men dancing and singing with young maidens, decked out in their dirndls and frilly Bavarian blouses. It is a land of civility where everyone greets one another with the words Grüß Gott (Greetings to God)—a land so polite that not to do so would be considered boorish and rude.

In 1966, our bicycling journey started at the Starnberg railway station. We rented 43 bicycles (none of which had any gears) for $10 each and bicycled south along the shores of the Starnbergersee to Bad Tolz, Wallberg to the green glacial waters of Achensee. We ended a few days later in Innsbruck.

A bit of history: I planned that first trip just a few days before we all biked it. Our 43 students set sail on July 2nd, 1966, aboard the Leonardo da Vinci ship bound for Naples, Italy. Sidney Robinson, Martha Butterfield and Bob McDermott accompanied the group for 10 days at sea while I flew to Munich, Germany to figure out a seven-day bicycle route somewhere in Bavaria.

Our brochure of 1966 read “along a few of the beautiful valley roads of Germany we bike… (providing) an opportunity to swim, to picnic and to acquire a feeling of seeing Europe the way thousands of European students do.” It was my job, while the group was at sea, to find a route that would do justice to what we had promised.

Fortunately, Bavaria proved as breathtaking as we had hoped. We delivered.

Little did we know as we set off in 1966 that our little company would one day be the catalyst for hundreds, even thousands of Americans, Canadians, Brazilians, and citizens from around the world to catch the “bike bug.” And so it is time to go right back to our roots and do it again. Starnberg, here we come!