Getting to Füssen was seriously a bit of a battle and a lesson in patience!  It is a teeny town located in the South of Germany very near the Austrian border.  I was able to book a train ticket from Heidelberg to Pfronten-Weissbach, and from there a bus to Füssen via my favorite travel site (rome2rio.com).  In total, there were 4 connections with about 5 minutes between each connection… Perhaps I should have looked into longer connection breaks between each stop, but thinking that Germans are known for their precision and timeliness, I figured 5 minutes would be no problem at all!

I was wrong.  The train from Heidelberg left on time, but when I got to Stuttgart there was a delay of 15 minutes.  Which in turn threw off my connection in Ulm… And my connection in Kempten, which made me miss the bus in Pfronten-Weissbach… Instead of arriving for the bus at 3:15 I had arrived a bit after 6.  I must say that the train from Kempten to Pfronten-Weissbach was the cutest thing I’d seen!  It only had 2 little caboose (cabooses??) and was like a commuter train for the little town in the area.  Just adorable!

The cute train to Pfronten-Weissbach dropped me and a few others off at a little bench on the side of the road.  Great, now what??  Thankfully, as mentioned a few other people had also gotten off at the stop so I was able to ask where the bus stop was.  I was shown by a very nice lady and I made my way to wait.  It was just around the corner and according to the sign I had missed the last bus by 5 minutes or so and the next one wouldn’t be coming around for another hour!  Hmmmm…. what to do….

As miracles would have it, there was a bar just across the street:)  I wasn’t about to stand out in the cold for an hour, no sir!  Plus, I had had just about enough of the “hurry up and wait” game that I had been playing all day since leaving Heidelberg!  It was time for a little unwinding with a beer.  I went across the street and walked in to find a teeny bar with the bartender and an obvious local who kept trying to speak with me, yet I kept having to shrug my shoulders and shake my head to signal that I didn’t have a clue what he was saying!

About a half hour later two more locals came in, one of which spoke a bit of English:)  I had explained I was waiting for the bus which then erupted the bar into a conversation on whether the bus would show up at all!  According to the locals, because we were in such a teeny town, buses ran whenever they felt the need to and not necessarily when they were scheduled to… Joy!!  All I could think at this point was that I really didn’t care!  I had a couple of beers in me and thought, well worst case I would find somewhere to stay for the night, then make my way to Füssen the next day.

I made it back to bus station a few minutes before it was due to arrive, and thankfully about 10 minutes after it was due, it did show:)  I was in Füssen about 20 minutes later and to Suzanne’s B&B, which was located around the corner from the train station, about 10 minutes after that.

Suzanne’s B&B is a lovely place.  It is run by Suzanne (originally from Chicago if memory serves) and her husband.  Part of the home is their private residence and the rest has been turned into a B&B.  Suzanne had a bit of a no-nonsense edge to her but was very accommodating both with information about the area and recommending ways to get to my next destination.  I paid more than I was hoping to, but being last-minute I lucked out that I was able to find anything at all.  The room was comfortable with a private bathroom and breakfast was included, so really I’ve no complaints:)  And best of all, it was only a bike ride away from the Neuschwanstein Castle:)

I ended up spending 3 days and 4 nights in Füssen filling my days with hikes, a visit to the Neuschwanstein Castle, enjoying some Oktoberfest celebrations in the evenings and a day just relaxing/continuing to recover from the crud I’d caught.  I will say the nature surrounding Füssen is just beautiful!!  Especially with the colors changing on the trees and the color of the water in the lakes and rivers, it was just amazing!

On to Neuschwanstein

Back to Europe