Chiemgau, A Changing Landscape

A few thousand years ago, there were bare moraine ridges and barren meltwater valleys here. A landscape born in the last ice age, characterized by the edge of the Alps, gentle hills, moors, and lakes. And by cultural richness, not only on the islands in Lake Chiemsee, with their famous monasteries and castles. Long before King Ludwig II, the first people settled in the Chiemgau region. Finds of hunting weapons from the Neanderthal era prove that the land was inhabited even during the ice age, probably because there was plenty of game to hunt. During the Bronze Age, one of the most important trade routes from the mountains to the Alpine foothills passed through here. Then came the Celts and the Romans.