Cologne to Füssen, 15 Oct 2019
/Time for a travel day to the Bavarian Alps. After the trains, we arrived in Füssen and explored the town a bit.
Another quiet night at the hostel, especially nice some we needed to get up early. We were again the first ones down for breakfast, and after we finished, we went back to finish packing and check out. Off to the train station to pick up a couple sandwiches for lunch and then find our track.
The train that pulled up when it was close to departure time stopped not as far down the track as we would have thought, and then the doors didn’t open. After crowds had accumulated in front of each door, an announcement came saying that a car was going to be added to the train. After the new car arrived, the section we were standing in front of started moving towards the new car, so herds shuffled along until the train stopped and the doors opened. We didn’t have any trouble finding seats and sat back for the hour-and-a-half ride to Mannheim.
The connection to the next train was right next to us, and we only had to wait a couple minutes before it pulled up. There were a few baby strollers coming out, so we eventually made our way to another door, once again having little problem finding seats. After a little while, we had our sandwiches, which were much better than we would have expected.
After another hour-and-a-half ride, we arrived in Augsburg and made the dash to our next track on the opposite side of the station. The next train was waiting there, so we boarded for the last hour-and-a-half leg to Füssen.
Füssen
We arrived too early to check into the hostel so we decided to stash our bags at the train station while we did a town walk. We had only 3€ in coins, so rather than finding a place to get change, we decided to try to fit everything into one of the smaller lockers. Fortunately, it was pretty deep, so with some rearranging of bag contents, I got them in with a bit of room to spare.
Bags handled, we headed to the Tourist Information center to see what kind of maps they had. When we were done there, we began our tour.
The walk started along one of the original town walls from the 16th century. One of the early stops was through a cemetery next to a Franciscan monastery. We then got one of our first vista views of Füssen, seeing the clock tower from the Church of St. Magnus as well as the High Castle, both of which we would see later.
We then worked our way down to the Lech River, which is a bright color because of dissolved minerals. After following the river for a while, we worked our way into the town, with the first stop being the very colorful Church of the Holy Spirit.
A bit further along the tour, we came up close to the clock tower we had seen before, followed by walking around High Castle. The walls are flat, but the painting uses forced perspective to make you think the windows are projecting from the wall. We also went to the herb garden, which gave a pretty good view.
After the castle, the walk made a large detour along the Lech River to a bridge that gives you a view of Lech Falls. Because of the time of year, there wasn't any water running over the falls. We were interested in going to the Treetop Walkway, but the timing didn't work out, so we worked our way back to the train station to pick up our bags, then went to check-in.
One thing we wanted to ask about was something called the Füssen card, which gives you free bus rides and discounts at various attractions. The person checking us in did have them but didn't have a way to activate them, saying that we would need to do it at the Tourist Information center. Unfortunately, they were already closed, and we needed to be on a bus the next day before they opened. He said that some people have had luck using the cards without activating them, and said we should give it a try.
After settling into our room, we went to find some dinner, settling on Greek food at a dining hall. After that, we went to the gelato shop, then to the grocery store for breakfast items (breakfast at the hostel would start too late for us). Since we knew we might have to pay for bus fares, we collected change at each place we went, and we were pretty confident we had enough.
That was enough for the day, and we went to sleep early since we would wake early.
