Flowers, Figures, and Food in Füssen

[Third and final guest blog post from Liz]

And finally, my last blog post on Füssen!  No specific topic this time, just a few of my general observations.

The wildflowers in Füssen were a treat for me, and I took pictures of many, some known and some unknown.  Here's some of the better pictures, for those of you interested in plants.

A wild rose at the base of the Pollat waterfall by Neuschwanstein.

An unknown type of orchid.

Wild strawberries!  Unfortunately, they're too small and full of seeds to be really good for eating. 

Forget-me-nots, identified by Kate.

Something purple?

Füssen also had an interesting variety of sculpture, some old and some modern.  It was always a pleasant surprise to come upon one of these while wandering the town's small streets.  This first is a video of an interesting arrangement they had before the tourist information building.  The sculpture is several pillars of granite, with smaller spinning blocks of granite atop each one.  According to Rick Steves, they're purely powered by the water, and the spinning heads are supposed to represent friendly people talking with each other.

This statute was at Hohenschwangau, and looks like Robin Hood to me.

Reading girls.

This guy is a representative of an old lute making family in Füssen.  

I'm not exactly sure why, but this sad-looking girl represents the friendship between Füssen and another city in Japan.

And finally, a small mention of our favorite place to eat breakfast at in Füssen:  Gefühl Für Brot!  This translates into "The Feel for Bread," I believe, as exemplified by their fun sign.

And that's all from me!  I had a wonderful time traveling with Kate and Paul.  At this point in their trip, they're old pros at this whole Europe travel thing, and kindly tolerated my whole "This is sooo cool!" reaction to every thing.  : )  Thanks for everything, guys, I miss you already!

"Füssen" Means Feet in German

Liz again, back guest blogging!  We had such a wonderful time in Füssen, I couldn't cover it all in just one post.  The adventures continue.

Our one full day in Füssen was dedicated to a nice, long hike through the surrounding woods and mountains.  Füssen lies along a river called the Lech, which has an interesting milky blue color.  I don't know where the color comes from, but if I ever find out, I'll leave a comment to this post with the explanation.

Our first sight of the day was Lechfalls, where a bust of King Maximilian is carved into the rock wall bordering the river.  This is definitely how I want to be memorialized someday, except it would be better if my statute showed me driving a team of four lions (like on the Siegestor in Munich).

From Lechfalls we walked through some beautiful woods and along a few small lakes (Obersee and Mittelsee), before reaching a lovely lake right below the mountains called Alatsee.

After lunch along the Alatsee shore, I contemplated a swim, but the water was so cold that I didn't quite commit.

 We made our way partly around the lake, and then left it behind to climb a steep trail to a place called Salober Alm.  According to a brief Internet search, "alm" means a mountain/Alpine pasture.  I found it interesting to discover that Germany apparently isn't keen on switchbacks...for much of the way, the trail went pretty much straight up.

This part of the hike wasn't very long, and close to the top we found ourselves at a beautiful outlook with views back towards Füssen and Neuschwanstein.

And, best of all...there was beer!  All the way up there, by its lonesome self, stood the Salober Alm Berghutte ("mountain hut").  We had no idea it would be there, and were pleasantly surprised.  Naturally, we rehydrated ourselves, while enjoying the lovely mountain view, complete with even more cowbell.

Salober Alm was actually in Austria, just across the border.  For security, they had a sign:  "Attention, border!"

And there was a teeter totter!  I had to promise to behave myself, but Kate eventually agreed to play on it with me.

Back down at Alatsee, we found a beautiful spot for swimming and wading.

After that we made our way back to Füssen fairly quickly, as we were pursued by a bloodthirsty swarm of mosquitoes.  More beautiful forest.

And that was our hike!  Definitely a highlight of the trip for me, and I would love to go back some day to explore the area trails further.

Suddenly Castle

On the only full day we spent in Bacharach, we visited Burg Eltz (located on the Mosel River), which is Rick Steves' favorite castle in all of Europe.  To get there from Bacharach, we took a boat down the most scenic stretch of the Rhine (again, according to Rick Steves) from Bacharach to St. Goar.  We saw quite a few castles, many of which were once owned by robber barons:

The robber barons would build their castles along the Rhine and put in place some sort of blockade to keep ships from passing through - until the ship paid the toll.  This was clearly a popular activity, since there are quite a few castles!

After the boat, we caught two trains and then had to walk about an hour on a rather muddy forest path to get to Burg Eltz.  We walked and walked and walked and rounded a bend and... suddenly castle!

Kate, Liz, and castle:

One of the castle courtyards where we waited for our tour to begin:

Liz clearly loved the drainspouts, since she took quite a few photos of them:

Photo by Liz

And, of course, as with all the other castles, no pictures were allowed inside.  We did take some photos of items within the treasury, however.  Liz liked this golden statue of Diana on a stag (although she bemoaned the idea of Diana riding sidesaddle):

Photo by Liz

Paul was enraptured by Drunkenness Conveying Gluttony.  And let's be honest, who wouldn't be?

And we were all puzzled by some of the very elaborate drinking vessels:

Photo by Liz

How do you drink out of that?

Afterwards, due to a bit of a mixup, we had some extra time to walk around and snap some shots of the castle from other viewpoints:

Finally, if you've been keeping track, that's one boat, four trains, and two hours of walking to get to and from Burg Eltz.  And it was worth it.  The inside of the castle was quite neat.  We saw bedrooms, a children's room, a kitchen, and much more - all very neatly designed and well-preserved.

Sleeping in a Castle

More blog posts from Liz about Füssen are in the works.  However, since she's currently busy visiting her German relatives (or maybe even on her way back to the States?), we'll move on to Bacharach for now.

Bacharach was our third and final German destination with Liz.  Recommended by Rick Steves, this cute little town has one of the best places to stay - a 12th-century castle that has been turned into a hostel:

Located high on a hill, it was quite a hike to the hostel, especially while toting our moderately heavy bags.  However, it was definitely worth it.  Not only was the castle fun to explore but they offer filling, delicious dinners for the cheap price of 7.50 Euro per person.  You can't beat that!

Clearly, they were pretty stingy with the gravy...

Here's a photo of the courtyard of the hostel with the tower (which, yes, we climbed around in, but sadly you couldn't see much since it's mostly hostel rooms):

And the view from the hostel wasn't too bad:

The Rhine River

There is also a very neat ruined chapel below the castle.  Liz was excited to note that they'd be performing a Shakespeare play there sometime in August.  It would certainly make a good stage!

We took a Rick Steves walking tour of the town and learned about the oldest building (from 1368), the Altes Haus:

And wandered along this lovely little stream-side garden:

We enjoyed ice cream cones (Liz and Paul tried the local specialty - a Riesling ice cream - while I opted for chocolate):

And finally, a parting view of the town of Bacharach:

Fun and Fancy Free in Fussen

[Note from Kate: As will soon be obvious, this is a guest post from Liz.  Also, I should fess up that I titled this post, so you can't blame Liz for it]

Greetings, friendly readers of No Cleaping Over!  Liz here, guest-blogging for Kate and Paul about our adventures in Füssen, a small town just below the mountains that border Germany and Austria.

We arrived in Füssen in the early afternoon, on a train from Munich packed with eager day-trippers and other tourists (boo).  Füssen is a popular destination for visitors of Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles.  "Mad" King Ludwig II of Bavaria grew up in Hohenschwangau, "High Swan Castle," which was a royal summer residence and still owned by the family.  King Ludwig II was fascinated by the romantic and idealized legends of German knights.  When he grew up, he decided to build a castle that epitomized his boyhood dreams.  Hence Neuschwanstein, the "New Swan Stone," which is pretty much in the backyard of Hohennschwangau.

King Ludwig II died fairly young, before Neuschwanstein was finished and when only some of the rooms were completed.  Immediately after his death, the castle was sold to Bavaria to cover the king's debts.  It seems fitting to me that a castle designed to represent idealism was never actually used, and could have also been called The Money Pitt.

The area immediately around the King's Castles is quite touristy and feels a little like Disneyland.  The scenery, though, was stunning.

Fields and villages! 

Mountains and trees and a lake!

Friendly faces!

We had reservations to tour both castles, starting with Hohenschwangau.

Sadly, no photos allowed inside.  We saw a number of rich furnishings and artworks, many of which our tour guide described with a surprisingly biting manner.  ("This chest is made out of lapis lazuli and enamel.  But that wasn't fancy enough for the family, so they had it embossed in GOLD.")  Everything was beautiful, but the tour was only 30 minutes long, and we were left wanting more actual information about the castle.  The rooms were also surprisingly dark and small (to me, at least).  With almost all the walls covered with murals, it felt more oppressive than comfortable.  The views from the windows, though, were gorgeous.  And...I claimed Hohenschwangau!  Even with 4 squares, this places me absolutely nowhere near the lead in Kate and Paul's game of Carcassone

On to Neuschwanstein.  Recognize it?

Again, no photos allowed inside.  But the finished interior rooms were pretty similar to Hohenschwangau, except even fancier.  King Ludwig II was quite friendly with the composer Richard Wagner, and many of the wall paintings were inspired by his operas.  Imagine if some eccentric rich person today (Mark Zuckerberg?) decided to build their own mansion based on the movies of James Cameron, calling it "New Avatar," and you pretty much get the idea behind Neuschwanstein.  There was one particularly memorable room that was essentially an indoor cave.  I wish we had a picture of that to share.

Leaving Neuschwanstein, we proceeded to Marienbrucke, a bridge spanning a waterfall on the Pollat River.

Kate was very brave to stand on it.  The bridge was built during King Ludwig's time, was swarming with tourists, and didn't look particularly sturdy.  I think it really made Paul question European safety and construction standards.

Next came my favorite part of the day:  walking back to Hohenschwangau through the Pollat Gorge, with the river tumbling headlong over and around rocks.

Someone had built a "waterslide," but we didn't try it.

We all had a friend of ours in our thoughts:

[Note from Kate - the picture doesn't really do it justice, but that is a seriously big slug - a good 4 inches in length.  I'm not great at bug identification, but my best guess is that it's a Spanish slug.]

And finally, we shouldn't leave the King's Castles without a few photos of the paragliders we saw soaring over the Castle, which definitely gave me a reason to come back someday.

Next post:  hiking!!!