Starnberger See Schwimmen Possenhofen–Leoni

The route traverses the open width of Starnberger See, offering an authentic point-to-point journey. The competition was established in 2009 by organizer Alexander Fricke, setting a direct line across the water between Possenhofen on the western bank and Leoni on the eastern shore. Swimmers can choose between a single crossing of two kilometers or a four-kilometer round trip that spans the lake and returns to the starting beach. Held at the height of summer in August, the lake provides inviting conditions for endurance swimming, and wetsuits are permitted for participants who prefer extra insulation or buoyancy. Out in the middle of the lake, the water is remarkably clean, disturbed only by a gentle rolling swell under the open sky.

Mountain weather can occasionally shift, and in past editions summer thunderstorms have delayed the start, with shoreline storm warning lights rotating along the coast to keep every swimmer informed and safe until calm water returns. Those undertaking the four-kilometer double traverse encounter a distinctive turning point at the Seehotel Leoni on the eastern bank. The mid-race transition functions like a miniature obstacle course, requiring swimmers to pull themselves out via a lakeside ladder and complete a brisk thirty-meter sprint on land before diving back in for the return crossing. Reaching the final finish back on the western shore demands careful footing across large natural pebbles lining the shallows, concluding a contest that has drawn enthusiastic open-water competitors ranging from teenagers to seasoned swimmers in their seventies.

Lake Starnberg and the Allmannshauser Steilwand abyss

Ranking as the fifth largest lake in Germany, the Starnberger See holds an extraordinary volume of water relative to its surface area, resulting in a gentle, protracted water exchange cycle that takes approximately twenty-one years to renew completely. Just southeast along the eastern bank, near the village of Allmannshausen, sits the Allmannshauser Steilwand, recognized as the steepest and deepest submerged rock face in German inland waters. The underwater precipice plunges downward in abrupt terraced stages to depths of seventy meters. From the base of this sheer underwater cliff, the lake bed continues to slope steeply down into the lake's absolute abyss, bottoming out at nearly one hundred and twenty-eight meters. To preserve the delicate subaquatic ecosystem, diving along this dramatic wall is strictly restricted within a nature reserve from November through mid-March.

Roseninsel and King Ludwig's tragic waters

One hundred and seventy meters off the western shore rests Roseninsel, the only island in Lake Starnberg. The island's surface has doubled in size over the centuries through continuous sedimentation and deliberate land reclamation. Long before modern swimmers crossed these channels, ancient communities settled along these shallows; in 2011, the prehistoric pile dwelling remains fringing the island were inscribed onto the UNESCO World Heritage list. Excavations from the island's lake bed have yielded remarkable prehistoric treasures, including bronze fishhooks and an ancient dugout canoe measuring more than thirteen meters in length from the Urnfield culture. The island derives its romantic name from a circular garden of hundreds of fragrant standard roses planted at the heart of its park.

Across the water near Berg, the lake holds a darker historical memory: in 1886, King Ludwig II of Bavaria drowned here in mysterious circumstances, an event marked to this day by a votive chapel and a wooden memorial cross standing in the water near the shoreline. Decades later, the frozen expanse of the lake witnessed a very different spectacle when inventor Max Valier steered a rocket-powered sled across the ice at four hundred kilometers per hour in the winter of 1929.

Possenhofen and the Feldafing shorefront

Possenhofen Castle, standing along the lakeside in Pöcking, was the childhood summer home of Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria, the future Empress of Austria. In the mid-nineteenth century, a circle of friends founded the adjacent lakeside colony of Niederpöcking, constructing grand summer retreats along the waterfront. Each stately villa was planned with direct access to the water, complete with its own private pier, boathouse, and traditional bathing pavilion. Originally called the Würmsee, the lake was officially renamed Starnberger See in 1962, mirroring its enduring popularity among Munich residents who arrived in droves to swim and sail along its shores. That public bathing culture found its definitive home at Strandbad Feldafing, an open-air public lido opened in June 1927 at the northern edge of the historic Lenné Park.

The vintage bathing facility retains the charm of classic lake recreation, preserving one hundred and fifty historical wooden cabins and spacious changing rooms. Swimmers can stretch out on a sandy beach measuring one hundred meters in length, swim out to moored bathing rafts floating in the shallows, or leap into the cool glacial waters from a dedicated wooden diving bridge with two boards. It is the quintessential Bavarian lakeside setting, where the morning's open-water traverse across the deep blue basin gives way to an afternoon resting on the pebble shores.