Fussen

The next day we started early to get to Fussen by lunchtime. We made our way to the camping ground in Schwangau, and could see Neuschwanstein Castle sitting on the mountain opposite us. The campground was right on a huge inland Sea, and the day was so hot we couldn’t wait to jump in. We had our first swim since leaving home! We came to Fussen, by bus, to see the Neuschwanstein Schloss (Cinderella Castle). This castle, built for crazy King Ludwig II, was the inspiration for Disney’s Castle, and it is easy to see why! It sits on a small mountain that can be seen for miles away, and the little turrets and windows look much like the fairytale Disney version.

After dinner, we went for a walk around the little town. The campground is on a little peninsula on the lake, surrounded by dairy farms. We walked along a little farm road and found a little hill that we could climb to get a good view of the town, the castle & the sunset. We found that the hill led to a meadow that we could cross back to the water, so we tramped through in our waterproof pants. We played with the cows a little, and got some great photos of the sunset.



The next day we went to Neuswanstein. We decided to walk there, as the ground around the town is so flat (until you get to the mountains…) We walked to town, and it started pouring rain, our umbrellas were useless and our clothes were getting soaked. We found a little outdoors shop who had rain/wind proof jackets on sale! We picked up a bargain jacket each and kept going on our way. We felt great walking along the meadows in our raingear, stopping for heaps of photos and sights while approaching the castle as all the people in their cars and tour buses went whizzing by!



We took the hiking trail to the castle (most people go the main way by paved road) and arrived in heaps of time for our tour. The castle was pretty inside, but not as spectacular as it’s exterior design. We went to see Mary’s Bridge, which has a good view of the castle from the mountains. The bridge is suspended over a small river & waterfalls - very high! There was a track leading off the other side of the bridge, so we thought we’d follow it to get an even better view of the castle (and a bit of adventure away from the tour buses). So we climbed what you might call a (mountain) goat track. We travelled higher and higher and the path got thinner and closer to the edge of the mountain. We had a peaceful view of the castle and then worked our way back down for some lunch. After eating we found a sideway path down behind the castle which lead to the river below. We followed it through some lush forest and then onto a metal bridge leading along a rock face. We reached the bottom and found that it lead back to a main road into town (this meant that we didn’t have to climb up again to get back) After stocking up at the supermarket we finish our trek on foot by walking back to the camping ground. All up we estimate about 13 km for the day.



Not having had enough walking to day before we decided to head to a summer bob-slead track in the side of a mountain. We took a different route from camp along a river and arrived at the place to early (it opened at 12:30) Our map showed a walking trail behind the track so we thought we might give it a go. This path was bitumen and extraordinary steep to begin with. We reached a fork in the road already tired after 30mins of climbing. Deciding to continue we chose the closes mountain, Hornburg, and head up the now dirt track. The path wound up and up and eventually we reached another mountain goat track. We followed the red dots on the rock, the trail markers for 20 mins. We were creeping along the edge of a very steep mountain side when a safety rope appeared, at this point it started raining and we decided the rain could make this a very dangerous situation. We carefully picked our way back down the track as it became more slippery by the minute. The rain was heavy now and we power walked back down the hill to the crossroad. It was pouring and still another 20 min walk to the bob-sled building but to our luck there was a timber shelter in a neighbouring paddock. We climbed through the barbwire and took refugee here until the rain cleared. We eventually made it to the bottom of the mountain and had started heading towards town only for the rain to start again. This time we climbed under the bridge that we happened to be walking over and waited here for the rain to pass,
again. It rained on and off all the way back to camp and even our rain gear was struggling. We washed some clothes and headed for bed with the rain still pouring.