Rieß
The Riessersee Hotel overlooks Garmisch-Partenkirchen, perched atop a hill to the South.
There is a steep, stony footpath zigzagging up to the hotel.
At the bottom of that path, is a simple little hut. When my wife and I first arrived in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 2019, in the summer, when it was warm and the weather cooperated, a lovely woman served homemade bites and cold beer outside here. It was our absolute favorite place to stop, sequestered as it was from automobile traffic, and the only seats were old pallets piled in the grass beside a bubbling brook.
On the wall of the hut sits a wooden medallion that says: “Redesign. ‘Too Old Bob’ June – August 1990 / Concept and Design: Christoph Hodgson, Munich.”1
At the top of the path, a single, simple shrine to the Virgin Mary, painted, if not by Heinrich Bickel, certainly in his style.
Rieß 4, the Landhaus Reißersee, built in 1892.
On the outside wall facing the street, lüftlmalerei of Saint Leonard, the patron saint of farm animals, and Saint Gertrude, the patron saint of gardeners, painted in 1951 by Heinrich Bickel.2
Rieß 5, the Rießersee Hotel.
On the wall of the hotel facing the street, a lüftlmalerei depicting people enjoying the hotel, with a view of the Wetterstein and Zugspitze mountains as seen from the Rießersee, done in 1993 in a traditional style by artist Christoph Hodgson.
Not all of the lüftlmalerei Christoph Hodgson painted here remain, however.
The scene of the Reißersee on the outside wall of the pool and the lüftlmalerei on the wall of the hotel overlooking the town were painted over during a renovation in 2019 .
