First days in Germany

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I was still feeling pretty sad leaving everyone at school, but excited to begin travelling. The train ride from Munich to Fussen was actually a great experience in itself; riding on older regional trains. The landscape was picturesque, slowly approaching the snow covered alps, with sunshine directly above, quaint Bavarian villages with their onion domed churches and half timbered houses, and the last collections of snow melting away in the sun. Sticking my head out the window, seeing it all go by was one of those “this is so great! This is why I travel!” moments.

Arriving in Fussen I was struck by how fancy and touristy the main drag was; lots of hotels, an expensive looking bakery, and tons of souvenir shops. I walked for ten minutes to the hostel and checked in. The hostel (LA house Fussen) was pretty nice, just like a big house. The positives: clean bed, sheet, towel, nice bathrooms, good crowd (not a party hostel), and best of all, my room had a great view of Neuschwanstein from the window. Cons: the receptionist was an asian lady who I don’t think was the regular host. Her English was OK but I noticed she didn’t speak german, she couldn’t recommend anything in the area (like restaurants etc.), and she tended to lock herself up in the kitchen/reception whenever possible. I arrived at the hostel at around 3:00 PM and the hostel was pretty much abandoned, I had the place to myself. I took advantage of the wifi and recharged all my electronics (not many outlets in the rooms, had to go out in the hall), finally posting a lot of pictures and getting some messages out.

After getting settled in I went for a walk to explore the town and check out a cool restaurant I saw on trip advisor. The old town was a fine experience with its cobbled streets and many cultural tourist shops selling all sorts of stereotypical Bavarian items like alpine hats, steins, and lederhosen. I decided to take a walk along the river for some reason (I was starving, had been awake for 48 hours, and tired from walking and traveling all day). I guess the spendthrift got the best of me and so I decided to take a 2 hour walk to Aldi’s to get food supplies. I got oranges (fine but too messy to eat, I will get oranges or bananas next time), chocolate, salami, juice, and bread. All that cost me about 6 euros and I can feed off of it for the next few days, so despite the tiresome trip it was probably worth it over a 10-15 euro dinner and no supplies.

I arrived back at the hostel at around 7:30 and had a feast, eating all the salami, and a good part of everything else. Then I used the internet for a while and got to bed early at around 8:30 because I was so tired. Just as I was falling asleep, thinking I had the whole hostel to myself still, two Asian girls came into the room and took two of the beds… ugh, it would have been nice to have some privacy, but oh well.

The next morning I woke up and all six beds were full. It wasn’t a problem though because I was so tired I must have slept through any noise they made. I went down to have breakfast at the hostel (not included but only 2 euros), which was small but fine. Having just come from England (aka the land of giant breakfasts) and being used to large breakfasts at home I was expecting some kind of protein, or maybe cereal, and toast. Instead I got two fresh-made rolls (with all sorts of potential toppings; cheese, nutella, jam), coffee, and orange juice. At first I thought she had just brought out the bread and would ask for my order, but then I looked around and saw the other people and all they had were rolls as well. They were good rolls, and I loaded them up with lots of spreads, but it was still small compared to what I am used to.

At 9:00 I began the hike to the Konigsschlosser (king’s palaces). I really was not looking forward to more walking, but having just had some good food and a decent rest I felt up for it at first. It is about 3km to ticket booth at the foot of the mountains. It was a pleasant walk at first, with the scenery much the same as I described on the train ride the day before. As I walked on, my small backpack began to feel very heavy. I was inspired by sight of the castles again, and made it to the booth without any major discomfort, but it was not a good start to the day. I bought tickets to both castles (Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein) and hiked up to Hohenschwangau first. I was about 30 minutes early for the tour so I sat in the garden for a bit, resting my legs and enjoying the view of the castles, the alps, and alpensee (a large lake still partially covered in ice). I had a funny experience while sitting here; I realized how I refrain from doing things just because I think it might look a little funny, like drinking from the hose of my hydration bladder when I don’t have a hiking backpack, or trying to peel an orange with a spoon, and I resolved to not care what people think about the little things anymore. I’m a traveling student, I have no money to do everything properly, and I will never see these people again anyways, it is silly to let what they might think of me influence my actions.

Ok so finally my turn for the tour came, I was excited, I had thought I heard that the inside of Hohenschwangau was better than that of Neuschwanstein (while neuschwanstein is just famous for how it looks on the outside), but I think I remembered wrong. Inside I was disappointed a bit, some things were really cool, but it wasn’t the total grandeur I expected. It had the fairytale paintings on the wall, and the gold and jewel studded wedding presents, but it wasn’t the above and beyond I was hoping for. I left feeling a bit disappointed and dreading the 45 minute hike up the mountain to Nueschwanstein.

Finally! I was at the base of the real castle. Unfortunately there was a lot of scaffolding set up on the north and west sides of the castle, which kind of ruined the view from behind, but it was still “normal” from the front. Again I arrived early for my tour and sat down to rest. I took out my Bible and began to read and it attracted the attention of two nearby older women from Pennsylvania. They asked me what I was reading, and it turned out they were Christians as well! We talked for a few minutes, and then took pictures for each other in front of the castle. It was really nice to have a real conversation with people for the first time since leaving school and it really lifted my spirits.

My spirits soared as we entered the throne room in Neuschwanstein. Here was the giant room (gilded in gold, covered in mosaics and paintings, Italian marble, with a one ton, gold and jewel covered chandelier in the center) that I had been waiting for. As we continued through the castle all the walls were covered in very high quality fairytale paintings based on Wagner’s operas (as is the theme for the castle), which were far better than those at Hohenschwangau. We continued to the kings bed chamber where we saw his very impressive bed. It was carved wood with an intricate castle looking structure on top, stars built into the roof of the bed. Also in the room was a secret door to his toilet, a sink with a statue of a swan for a faucet, and numerous paintings. Leaving the king’s chambers we passed through his reading room and then a man-made cave! Climbing one of the towers, my tour group was greeted at the top by a large stone dragon and more paintings. We then entered a large hall with golden candlestands, statues of everything from unicorns, to knights, to animals, and more fairytale paintings. The tour guide said it was built to look like the great hall in the Wartburg castle (which I have also been to) and after she mentioned it I saw they were very similar (Neuschwanstein had more gold and paintings, Wartburg was carved wood and flags from what I remember). The tour ended with a pretty well done audio-visual movie of Konig Ludwig II, explaining his mental illness and mysterious death.

I left the castle feeling better, and with high hopes of finding a beer garden to sit down with a cold one and eat my packed lunch. However I missed the only one there was at some point coming down the hill and didn’t feel like walking back up. So I took the bus back into town and had lunch at the hostel. At this time I got a lot done on the internet, finally booking my flight to Turkey as well as more hostels in Germany which will carry my through until I go to Eschwege. That night I went to Gasthof Krone (a medieval themed restaurant, decked out with battle axes and suits of armor, as well as staff in costume) and had pork hoch (pork knee), the house specialty. It was actually really, really good. A tough crust on the outside was the perfect counter texture for the rich, fatty layer underneath. It tasted great and came with dumplings and sauerkraut, all washed down with a Konig Ludwig’s dunkel bier in a clay mug.

This morning I woke up at 5:30 AM in order to catch my 6:01 train to Bacharach. The trip took about eight hours, and I had to switch trains six times. Not the most pleasant train ride, but it was the cheapest when I looked online. Anyways, I am now sitting in the coolest youth hostel ever! It is a hostel in Burg Stahlek; a castle overlooking the Rhine river in Bacharach. Again good bed, shower, breakfast included, location could not be better (though an escalator up the hill would be nice :P), but unfortunately no wifi in the rooms and it is 1 euro an hour in the coffeeshop.

FYI: this blogsite won't let me upload photos for some reason so they are all going on facebook, check em out there :D

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