Harrison's European Vacation: Fussen, Germany, 6/24/10-6/27/10

Okay, so I blogged for about an hour about Fussen a few nights ago and it wouldn’t post and I lost the entire thing! Needless to say, I was a little bummed. So I’ve learned my lesson and I’m writing everything in MS Word now so I can at least save it! Blogging has been more difficult than I anticipated, mainly because our Internet connections have been weak most places we’ve been. We can usually get wifi access in the public areas of our hotels, but in our room the signal is so weak that it doesn’t work. So I’m really behind. Enough bellyaching….on to Fussen.

After leaving Rothenburg, we drove to Dinkelsbuhl, which is another walled city on the Romantic Road.

Dinkelsbuhl, Germany

We chose to drive there mainly because we spent a lot of time that morning shopping in Rothenburg, so by the time we hit the road it was basically time to eat again. Can you tell that food is a major topic of this blog? Anyway, Dinkelsbuhl was lovely as was Rothenburg, but seemed a little more spread out. The most noteworthy thing that happened there is that we got a parking ticket for parking too long inside the city wall; we didn’t know the rules until we read afterward in our book! We (I) have a bad habit of doing that, i.e. reading about things too late. Anyway, we decided to get back on the Autobahn and drive part of the way to Fussen to save a little time. Just based on what we had read and some instinct and pure luck, we got off the Autobahn at just the right time to get back on the Romantic Road (which is really just a signposted route that takes you through pretty little medieval villages). I say that because just after we got off the autobahn we began to see glimpses of the alps on the horizon. As we finally approached Fussen we could see Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles perched on the mountainside.

Arrived at our hotel and parked in the tightest parking garage ever, to find that our hotel was nice. Like, really nice. Like 4 star nice. Anyway, we went in search of dinner, eating at a place recommended in our Rick Steves book only to find that we were the only people there. Regardless, the food was pretty good. We found after arriving at our hotel (again, should have read ahead in our book) that it is recommended that your reserve your tickets for the castles ahead of time to avoid lines. Only problem is that you have to make reservations by 3 p.m. (or 2 p.m. or 6 p.m. depending on the source), but regardless we missed the deadline to make reservations to tour the castles on Friday. This worked out okay, however, because we went to Tegelberg, an area just a short distance past the castles on Friday for a total day of fun. Tegelberg is, I guess, the name of the mountain there. There’s a gondola to the top (very expensive, so we gave it a miss) and many adventurous souls go up there to hang glide and/or parasail to the fields below. This was entertaining to watch and gave me absolutely no desire to do more than that (although Maddie and McIntyre both want to try!). At the base of the gondola there is a summertime luge course and an awesome playground. The luge was awesome fun for all of us, but Maddie and I seemed to like it best. McIntyre did a couple of runs (once with me and once with Jim) but he had more fun on the zip line on the playground.

Maddie and Tracy on the Luge.

Mac going back for another ride on the zipline

After spending a few hours at Tegelberg, we headed back to the hotel to hang out in the biergarden so I could catch up on blogging and Jim could drink beer! And so the kids could just chill out. It was great to have a day of pure fun when we weren’t on any sort of schedule. Turns out even 12- year-olds can only spend so much time walking around quaint little villages.

On Saturday we finally visited the castles, which were beautiful. I personally enjoy looking at the exteriors more than the interiors. Maddie seemed to like the tours, but she complained about the fact that we couldn’t see ALL of the rooms of the castles.

Maddie and Mac trying on their new hats!

McIntyre seemed like he could take or leave it and just wanted to go play on the zip line some more, but he was a total trooper. The castle tours involve a lot of stairs and a lot of being quiet so everyone can hear the tour guide and he was a pretty good little boy through all of that. Overall, his behavior has been pretty darn good on this trip considering all he’s had to do

Hohenschwangau Castle

Neuschwanstein Castle

Unfortunately, here is where I have to tell the story of the frog. After we had finished our castle tours and gotten back down to the bottom near the ticket center, we saw an odd looking and rather large frog on the sidewalk. It seemed like an unusual place for a frog to be, and at first we weren’t even sure it was alive. Jim snapped a photo of it (he’s been like the stereotypical tourist snapping photos of EVERYTHING on this trip), and then the kids decided it might be nice to help the little froggy back over to the wooded area nearby. McIntyre bent down to try to pick it up and the frog hopped away, but in the wrong direction. It hopped into the road, and was merrily hopping across the road when a car or van (can’t remember which) came up the road. We were all cheering for the frog to hop faster, but sadly it stopped and then hopped at just the wrong time. Yes, you guessed it, after the car had gone past there was a poor little dead frog plastered on the road. The kids were rather traumatized. For several days afterward, McIntyre kept bringing it up and saying he was sad for the poor little frog. I’m sad for the frog too, but my concern is that the dead frog is the only thing McIntyre will remember about this trip. When you look back on your childhood and think about the things you remember from your early years, say around the age of 5, it’s the traumatic things (at least for me) that stand out. I SO hope this is not a memory that sticks for McIntyre.