Lüftlmalerei Walking Tour

A free self-guided walk takes you past the village's two dozen significant painted facades, most of them within five minutes of the parish church. The tourist office on Eugen-Papst-Strasse hands out a map; you can also follow brown signs marked Lüftlmalerei from the main street.

Highlights include the Pilatushaus, the Geroldhaus on Ettaler Strasse with its painted Hansel and Gretel scenes, and the Kölblhaus with its biblical cycle. The technique uses true fresco — pigment painted into wet plaster — which is what allows the paintings to survive the Alpine weather. Allow an hour at an unhurried pace.

things to do sight walking luftlmalerei
A story
The word Lüftlmalerei comes from the nickname of the 18th-century house painter Franz Zwink — Zum Lüftl — and the technique he and his contemporaries developed of painting in true fresco directly onto the wet plaster of Bavarian house facades. Oberammergau is its best surviving home.

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