ON TOP OF THE WORLD!

Sally Saunders enjoys a trip to the Bavarian Alps, where she strays from the beaten path for once - and finds herself up a mountain with a pushchair!

- 

Mountains have always entranced me – in pictures. I love an inspiring photo of a gorgeous scene as much as the next woman but, to me, they’ve always been something you admire from a distance – and are best kept that way. Never in a million years did I think I could actually make it to the top of one.

I have always taken a similar attitude to walking holidays: nice for other people, but definitely not for me. Give me a beach and a book and you have one happy camper!

This is perhaps influenced by my family. I have two adventurous boys, aged 11 and 13, but also a daughter, aged just two, for whom pottering about on a beach is the ideal holiday and anything more than a toddle can be a stretch. So we have a tendency to stick to the beaten path.

But if the past few years have taught me anything, it’s to seize the day and make the most of opportunities that arise, so when my family and I were invited to explore the Bavarian Alps, we decided, why not?

The area is perhaps best known as a winter skiing destination, but the rest of the year it is a walker’s paradise. Our destination was the historic but little-known town of Schliersee, nestled in the foothills of the mountains, on the banks of a lake of the same name (‘