Bavaria in Three Movements

Germany is not, as a rule, a country that worries about whether you're having a good time. Hospitality here tends toward the procedural, things arrive when they should, staff do what they're supposed to, and the emotional temperature stays somewhere around room.

Bavaria thinks it's different. The lederhosen, the beer halls, the general insistence on Gemütlichkeit, there's a whole apparatus devoted to the idea that this particular corner of Germany has warmth in its bones.

Over a few days I moved between Schloss Elmau, Chiemgauhof on Lake Chiemsee, and