By boat
across the lake

The Schliersee belongs to the Free State of Bavaria, and the valley around it is a protected landscape covering 17.54 square kilometres. Private motorboats are therefore not permitted. Listen from the shore and you hear oars, sails and wind, nothing else. That is remarkable for a lake less than an hour from Munich.

A passenger boat runs all the same, and has done for a long time: motor boats have offered round trips on the Schliersee since 1897. The service is older than most of the houses on the shore.

Unlike on the other large Upper Bavarian lakes, it is not run by the state-owned Bayerische Seenschifffahrt but by a private company. If you look for timetables on the state operator’s site, you are looking in the wrong place. The operator’s address is at the bottom of this page.

Today’s boat is the Schliersee III, built in Holland in 1993. It is just under twenty metres long and carries 120 passengers. For a lake this size that is about right: big enough that you still get on when it is busy, small enough not to feel like a ferry.

The round trip takes forty-five minutes, daily from May to September, with departures between 11 am and 5 pm. It crosses both basins of the lake and passes the island of Wörth in the middle. It is the only viewpoint from which you see the Schliersee as a whole, with the village on one side and the mountains on the other.

Besides the round trips there are shorter legs and special trips. The boat can also be chartered for weddings, group outings and company events. If you are planning something like that and need rooms in the village: we are five minutes’ walk from the landing.

If you would rather take yourself out on the lake, there is a boat hire on the shore, founded by Sepp Mayr in 1956. It still belongs to the boat company and is in the same spot. You can choose between rowing boats, pedal boats, pedal boats with a slide and electric boats.

Electric boats are the exception to the motorboat ban, which is why you can cross the lake without using your arms or legs and without anyone hearing you. For an hour on the water with children, that is the obvious choice.

Stand-up paddleboards can also be hired in the village. Our four holiday apartments at the Seeheimat have their own, plus two small kayaks, free for guests, and direct access to the water from the garden. If you want to be on the water regularly, that is the place to stay.

The landing stage is five minutes’ walk from Schliersee station, right next to the Vitalwelt pool and the lakeside playground. If you come by train, you simply walk from the platform and you are there.

There is parking at the station and at the Vitalwelt. In high season and on fine weekends it fills early. The operator itself recommends coming by train then, and that is good advice: from München Hauptbahnhof it takes about fifty minutes without changing.

If you are staying with us, the question does not arise. It is four minutes’ walk from the Xaver-Terofal-Platz to the water, and parking at the house is free.

We deliberately do not give prices or exact times here. They change with the season, and a page with out-of-date figures does more harm than one with none. The operator’s address is below.