The Bavarian lakes
compared

Bavaria has hundreds of lakes, and most lists of the best ones repeat the same five or six: Königssee, Eibsee, Chiemsee, Tegernsee, Walchensee, sometimes Starnberger See. They are on those lists for good reasons. What the lists rarely tell you is what a day at each one is actually like: how long it takes to get there without a car, whether you can walk around it, where you can swim, and how many other people will have had the same idea.

This comparison covers eight lakes in the Bavarian Alps and the foothills south of Munich, all within a day trip of the city. Every size, depth and elevation comes from the official lake data as published on Wikipedia. Journey times are rounded and given as ranges, because they depend on connections; check bahn.de for your date.

One disclosure before we start. We are the Terofal, a hotel and restaurant in the village of Schliersee, and we think Schliersee is the best lake in Bavaria. We will make that case properly in the next chapter. Where another lake is better at something, we say so, because a comparison that always ends with the author’s own lake is not a comparison.

One: it is the right size. Schliersee covers 2.22 km² and the path around it is 7.4 km long and practically flat. You can walk all the way round in about two hours, before lunch, and see the opposite shore almost the whole time. Tegernsee is 21 km around, Chiemsee 64. Those are lakes you visit a part of. Schliersee is one you can know in a morning.

Two: it is close and needs no car. A direct BRB regional train from Munich Hauptbahnhof reaches Schliersee in about 50 to 55 minutes, with no change, and the boat pier is five minutes from the platform. Of the eight lakes here, only Starnberger See is quicker; Tegernsee and Chiemsee take about an hour on their fastest direct trains.

Three: it is quiet on the water. Private motorboats are not allowed on Schliersee. One passenger boat has run since 1897, and otherwise you share the lake with rowing boats, pedal boats, electric boats and paddleboards. On Chiemsee and Starnberger See private motorboats are allowed with a permit; Starnberger See alone has a fixed quota of 255 private licences.

Four: there is an island with an inn on it. Insel Wörth, 2.4 hectares of woodland about 200 metres off the western shore, has been settled since prehistoric times and served by boat since 1832. You can only reach it on the water.

Five: the mountains start at the shore. The Mangfall range rises directly from the southern end of the lake, and the Schliersberg cable car, running since 1952, lifts you from the village to about 1,060 metres. Many lakes near Munich lie in flat moraine country with the Alps on the horizon. At Schliersee they are the horizon.

Six: the village is still a village. Schliersee has a parish church, a peasant theatre founded in 1892, bakeries, inns and people who live there all year. It is busy on hot summer weekends, and we will not pretend otherwise, but it has none of the coach-park scale of Königssee or Eibsee.

Seven: there is a second lake 15 minutes above it. Spitzingsee, at 1,084 metres, is a small high mountain lake with hiking in summer and a ski area in winter, reached by regional bus from Schliersee station. Two very different lakes from one base is something none of the others offers so easily.

A compact lake at 777 metres in the district of Miesbach, about 50 km south-east of Munich. The village sits on the north-eastern shore, Fischhausen and Neuhaus on the southern one, and the island Wörth lies in the middle. Since the lake was aerated in 1982, it has had no significant algal blooms or fish kills. The municipality gives summer water temperatures of up to 23 °C, warm for a lake this high.

Schliersee’s larger neighbour, just over the hill to the west, and the better-known of the two. Five towns line its shore, among them Tegernsee itself and Rottach-Egern, with more restaurants, shops and hotels than anywhere else on this list outside Chiemsee. It was the first lake in the world to get a ring sewer around its whole shore. A direct BRB train runs from Munich to Tegernsee station. Where it beats Schliersee: choice. If you want a long lunch, a choice of boat stops and an afternoon of shops, Tegernsee has more of all three. Where it does not: the 21 km shore path is a day project, not a morning walk.

A small mountain lake at 1,084 metres, part of the municipality of Schliersee and about 15 to 20 minutes above it by regional bus. It is surrounded by Alpine pastures and peaks such as the Rotwand and the Brecherspitze, and in winter by a compact ski area. The water is cold even in August, and the lake is too small to be a destination on its own for a whole day. Combined with Schliersee it is excellent: lake below in the morning, mountains above in the afternoon.

In our view the most dramatic lake in Germany. It lies in a long, narrow trough in the Berchtesgaden National Park, with walls of rock dropping straight into the water and the east face of the Watzmann above. Electric boats have run here since 1909; today the Bayerische Seenschifffahrt operates a fleet of 18 large ones, and the trip to the chapel of St. Bartholomä is one of the classic images of Bavaria. In 2014 the boats carried 580,000 passengers. That is the catch: the boat is the only practical way along the lake, and on summer days you queue for it. From Munich it is a long trip by train, with a change at Freilassing and a bus from Berchtesgaden.

A clear green lake at the foot of the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain, near Grainau and Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It has eight small islands and a shore path of about 8 km, and it is privately owned. Its fame on social media has turned it into one of the most crowded natural sites in the Bavarian Alps; the local ranger describes fine-weather days as a kind of state of emergency. In the dry summer of 2026 its water level fell to the lowest since records began in 2008. Where it beats Schliersee: the backdrop. Nothing at Schliersee looks like the Zugspitze wall. Where it does not: getting there and getting a moment to yourself.

Known as the Bavarian Sea, and at 79.9 km² the largest lake in Bavaria, third-largest in Germany after Lake Constance and the Müritz. Its two main islands make the trip: Herreninsel with Ludwig II’s palace of Herrenchiemsee, and Fraueninsel with its Benedictine convent and fishing village. Trains from Munich to Prien am Chiemsee take about an hour on the fastest services. Where it beats Schliersee: size, history and the islands. Where it does not: the Alps are a view across the water rather than something you can walk into, and 64 km of shore means you will see one corner of it.

Munich’s own lake, about half an hour from the city centre on the S6 S-Bahn. It is big (56.4 km²) and deep (up to 128 m), one of the deepest and most voluminous lakes in Germany. King Ludwig II died here in 1886, and the Roseninsel with its royal garden is worth the short boat ride. Where it beats Schliersee: it is quicker to reach than any other lake on this list. Where it does not: it lies in rolling hills with the mountains far to the south, and on a hot Sunday it is where much of Munich goes swimming.

A large, deep mountain lake at 801 metres, about 75 km south of Munich, with turquoise water and the Herzogstand cable car rising from the village of Walchensee. At about 16.3 km² and up to 189.5 m deep it is one of the largest and deepest Alpine lakes in Germany. There is a motorboat ban, and the water is officially unpolluted (quality class I); in summer it reaches 17 to 22 °C. Its downside for a day trip is access: trains to Kochel, then a bus over the Kesselberg, two hours or more each way. Its smaller neighbour, the Kochelsee, sits at the foot of that same pass.

For one image you will remember for life, go to Königssee. Take the first boat of the day and stay the night in Berchtesgaden, so you are not part of the midday crowd.

For the Zugspitze reflected in green water, go to Eibsee, ideally on a weekday morning and combined with the mountain itself.

For palaces and islands, go to Chiemsee. Herrenchiemsee alone fills half a day.

For the shortest possible journey, go to Starnberger See. Nothing on this list is closer.

For water clear enough to see the bottom far out from the shore, go to Walchensee, and accept the bus.

For lake towns with the widest choice of restaurants and shops, go to Tegernsee. It is 11 km from Schliersee, and many people do both on the same trip.

For everything else, which in our experience is what most people actually want from a day out of Munich, come to Schliersee: a lake small enough to walk round, a train that does not need a change, mountains you can be standing on by mid afternoon, and a village where the lake path starts at the end of the street.

If you are travelling by train, journey time is only half the question. The other half is how many changes you make and what happens when you arrive. Starnberger See is quickest, but Starnberg station leaves you in a town on a large lake. Schliersee and Tegernsee are both under an hour and a quarter, both direct, and both put you within minutes of the water. Chiemsee needs a train to Prien and then the lake railway or a walk to the pier. Walchensee, Eibsee and Königssee all need a change and a bus, and take two hours or more each way.

All eight lakes can be reached with a Deutschlandticket or a Bayern-Ticket on regional trains and local buses. Boats, cable cars and the Zugspitze railway to Eibsee charge separately. Since December 2023 Schliersee, Spitzingsee and Tegernsee lie within the Munich MVV fare network.