On to FÜSSEN.
It was not an easy task getting from Lucerne to Munich or Füssen (we hadn't decided as of that time). We changed in Zug and then in Zurich, which took until the early afternoon. Then our choice awaited us: for Munich take the direct train, for Füssen, change in some obscure stop, adding about 1 hour to our trip. We decided to brave Munich.
We had bought a small, extremely expensive Swiss breakfast of a few rolls with meat and a loaf of dry bread back in Lucerne. It was a good thing that we had bought the bread, though, because we were on the train all day long[61]. It was also a good thing that we had added Austria to our Europass, because for our train to Munich, we would have gotten in big trouble for the 24 km stretch into Austria (totally unbeknownst to us). Boy can we be lucky sometimes.
We had decided to try for Munich, because we didn't know if we felt up to the
castles at Neuschwanstein yet. Instead, we were feeling ready for excitement,
big sights, and to getting really drunk at Oktoberfest after spending all day
on the train. We spent most of the train ride reading up on Munich, filtering
through the many hotel possibilities, and talking about how much fun it would
be to get there.
We finally arrived at 18:00[62], which is prime rush hour there. Big mistake. Plus, for some odd reason that wasn't in any of our books, the TI had just closed, so we were on our own for finding a place to stay. But we had many listings for hotels, both in Rick Steves and in our photocopies of Frommers, so we were feeling confident for finding a room. Here's one...for 200 DM??? (~$140?). Too expensive! I'm sure we can find something better. Full. Full. Full. Oops, call that 200 DM guy back...GONE? In the last five minutes? Full. Full. Hotel in station? 300 DM?...SCREW MUNICH! Let's go on to Füssen. Thank God for the unlimited train pass.
Luckily the next train to Füssen (2 hours long...oops) was about to leave. We
piled on to the "milk train" (as we commonly called it) and spent most of the
train ride singing to ourselves and to confused passengers[63]. We arrived in Füssen, two of the only people left on the
train, at totally dark and deserted 21:00. We went straight for the phone and
called our first choice. Full? Oh-no, not again! But wait, she suggested
another hotel, which was also on our list, but we had put it lower on the list
because Rick Steves had warned light sleepers against the nearby church bells.
We called Hotel zum Hecten, which did have one room left if we would
hurry.
The directions she had given us, however, were very confusing. Was that "Richtbontstrausse' or `Lichtbonstrausse" (there were actually both streets there!). And were we supposed to turn left, or go past the street and then turn left, or see that the street was on your left and like, go straight up or something? Poor Doug, panicked, kept swearing at each new dead-end street he went down. But Füssen was a very small place, so we knew it had to be somewhere. We just hoped that we found it before she closed.
We finally found it, and were rewarded with a very cute room and great liquid soap[64] for only 90 DM (~$60). It was then 21:30, and we had eaten nothing but a loaf of dry bread all day. Luckily, the one restaurant that was open that late was not only reasonable but happened to be next door to our hotel. Though I, for some reason, suddenly couldn't eat, Doug thoroughly enjoyed his Schnitzel and local brew. I instead got more of a kick out of talking to the extremely nice Bavarian waitress, whose English, for once, was about as bad as my German. Somehow, we could still talk and really enjoy each other. Her patience reminded me of how wonderful it was to be back in Germany. Oh, and the church bells didn't bother us that night at all.
On to FÜSSEN.