We arrived in Fussen late Wednesday morning and wandered out of the train station (which we’d gotten to by bus because the train tracks near Fussen were being worked on). Fussen is *really* small and our hotel had been advertised as being a couple blocks from the train station, so though we had no actual address for the place we were confident that it would not be hard to find.
That might’ve been true had it been an actual hotel.
We wandered down the street and did see a sign for our hotel next to a bakery, so we figured we were close and we just needed to wander that block until we found the door for the hotel reception. But, subsequent searching around the block yielded no hotel doors. Luckily at this point we happened across the TI (Tourist Info) office, so we ducked inside to ask directions.
As it turns out, the bakery with the sign WAS the reception desk for our hotel, as the rooms were located in the floors above the bakery. Breakfast was included, so we figured that our morning munchies would at least be good. When we asked the gal manning the bakery how we check into the hotel she promptly picked up her cordless phone, dialed a number, said something quickly in German, and then told us to wait 5 minutes.
5 minutes passed. No more indication about where we were to go. 10 minutes passed. I got bored and started reading the German tabloids and fashion mags. Though I only know a total of about 5 words of German, I did, in the next 3 minutes, learn a lot about how to achieve my perfect bikini body for the summer. Shortly, after I’d consumed the first magazine, a strapping young German guy (no lederhosen, though – sorry, ladies), popped into the bakery and told us to follow him to our room.
He didn’t have any garb identifying him as hotel staff, but he knew Rolf’s name (though, to be fair, it could’ve just been an educated guess on his part. This is Germany, after all), so we felt it wise to follow him. He led us around the corner, showed us a key used for the external door and then led us up two flights to our room. He then showed us a key for our room door, gave us both keys, took money for the room and instructed us to leave the keys in the room when our stay ended the next day. And then, without any further formalities, he was off again, as quickly as he came.
That might’ve been true had it been an actual hotel.
We wandered down the street and did see a sign for our hotel next to a bakery, so we figured we were close and we just needed to wander that block until we found the door for the hotel reception. But, subsequent searching around the block yielded no hotel doors. Luckily at this point we happened across the TI (Tourist Info) office, so we ducked inside to ask directions.
As it turns out, the bakery with the sign WAS the reception desk for our hotel, as the rooms were located in the floors above the bakery. Breakfast was included, so we figured that our morning munchies would at least be good. When we asked the gal manning the bakery how we check into the hotel she promptly picked up her cordless phone, dialed a number, said something quickly in German, and then told us to wait 5 minutes.
5 minutes passed. No more indication about where we were to go. 10 minutes passed. I got bored and started reading the German tabloids and fashion mags. Though I only know a total of about 5 words of German, I did, in the next 3 minutes, learn a lot about how to achieve my perfect bikini body for the summer. Shortly, after I’d consumed the first magazine, a strapping young German guy (no lederhosen, though – sorry, ladies), popped into the bakery and told us to follow him to our room.
He didn’t have any garb identifying him as hotel staff, but he knew Rolf’s name (though, to be fair, it could’ve just been an educated guess on his part. This is Germany, after all), so we felt it wise to follow him. He led us around the corner, showed us a key used for the external door and then led us up two flights to our room. He then showed us a key for our room door, gave us both keys, took money for the room and instructed us to leave the keys in the room when our stay ended the next day. And then, without any further formalities, he was off again, as quickly as he came.
Since our sole purpose for being in Fussen was to see the famous castles of Mad King Ludwig II (including Neuschwanstein, upon which Walt Disney modeled his Sleeping Beauty castle), we quickly dropped off our bags and headed back to the train/bus station to find the bus that would take us the Castles.
Once there, we found a lady waiting at the bus stop also, so Rolf asked -in his excellent German - where we should wait for the bus. Unfortunately, the German words for ‘bus ticket’ and ‘postcard’ are apparently very close, and it would seem that her German listing skills are not as well-honed as Rolf’s German speaking skills, so we took a short detour through the post office, only to end up back at the same bus stop 5 minutes later to catch the tour bus. (At which point we also had to spend a couple minutes commiserating with Bus Stop Lady about the poor postcard selection at the post office, since we’d returned without any postcards.)
The bus heading up to the Castles arrived quickly – but not as quickly, unfortunately, as another bus arriving in town dumped about 50 additional tourists who would be sharing our bus up to the ticket booth at the castles. Oh well, the super-rich, formerly-royal Wittelsbach family (who still owns one of the castles) has to make a living, too, right?
When we arrived at the castle ticket area, we soon realized that they have this whole tourist thing down to a science. First you wait in line and purchase tickets to the two castles, which are each marked with a tour time. Then, you find your way up to the first castle on foot and wait in the courtyard/gift show until your appointed tour time. Finally, you pass your ticket through a barcode reader that then unlocks the turnstile to the castle if your tour time has been posted on big electronic boards at the entrance. It’s all self-driven and involves very little human contact. Very German.
The first castle was Ludwig’s mustard-yellow boyhood home Hohenschwangau. Like most of the other royal living quarters we had seen, the place was lavishly decorated and adorned with super fancy gifts that rich people seem to give to one another to remind everyone how insanely rich they are.
To give you some indicator of the lengths that the royal family went to in order to make their lives livable, I would like to point out that the king’s bedroom had small crystals in the ceiling that could be lit with torches from above. At night, these would appear like stars so that the king could rest his royal peepers under the night sky. It’s a rough life, folks.
We blitzed through the first castle and hiked up the path to Neuschwanstein. If Hohenschwangau was a “6” on the “crazy extravagance” scale, then Neuschwanstein turns the dial up to 11. Every (completed – the castle was still under construction when Ludwig died) room had incredibly ornate décor, floor to ceiling.
Ludwig had what could charitably be called a “minor Wagner fetish” and had nearly every room painted with scenes from Wagner’s operas. Gold gilding was used in abundance (now I know why gold is a rare metal – all these crazy kings running around gilding everything) and one room was inexplicably turned into Ludwig’s very own bat cave (though he called it a “grotto”).
Eventually our tour came to an end as we passed through not one but two separate gift stores on our way to the exit. Afterwards we took a short hike up to a gigantic waterfall with boards that flexed to a distressing degree. We’d been eating a lot of food on this trip, so I was a little concerned about the structural integrity, but everything held up long enough for us to take some marvelous photos of the view.
Back down into the valley, a quick stop to pick up another bag (we are accumulating objects at an alarming rate), and back on board the bus to Fussen. Most everything was closed at this point so we just hit a local restaurant for sausage and strudel before hitting the sack. Next up: ultra-exciting travel day!
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