Christmas Day
Sunday 25 December 

Ian had planned a very special excursion for today, Christmas  Day. We left home at 7.45am to catch a train to Fussen in southern Bavaria near the Austrian border, arriving around 10am. We had seen patchy snow on the mountains ahead of the train and there were remnants at the edges of the road in Fussen but hardly enough to make the ‘white Christmas‘ we had been hoping for.

Fussen is the nearest town to two famous castles, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein  (also known as the Fairytale Castle). We set out from Fussen to walk to Hohenschwangau,  a distance of around 4 to 5kms by road but longer via walking paths. The remains of a snowfall lined the edges of the paths we followed and there were frequent icy patches which we had to avoid. Although we had a hiking pole each we felt we were in constant danger of falling on the slippery rock paths as we climbed up the mountain above Fussen and later along the forest paths.

All our efforts were worthwhile though for, as we climbed higher and neared Hohenschwangau, the ground was covered in quite deep snow and the lakes were frozen. There was a group of people playing a game of curling on one of the frozen lakes and there were other groups walking along the snowy tracks. This was what we had been hoping for!

Plenty of snow here!

View of Neuschwanstein on our walk

A close up shot of the castle

 We were quite tired by the time we reached the town, after walking 10kms in those difficult conditions. We were pleased to find that there was a bus back to Fussen!

It took us a while to find the Hotel Hirsch where we had a lunch booking, since my tour director had not provided a town map, and we had an interesting wander around the town. It turned out to be very close to the station and we enjoyed an excellent Christmas lunch. Ian ordered a veal schnitzel with potatoes fried with bacon pieces and I had ‘traditional roast pork’ with bread dumplings and red cabbage. This was followed by apple cream cheese strudel for Ian and ‘twice cooked’ chocolate cake with raspberries and icecream for me.

A homely restaurant for our Christmas dinner

Our main courses

And desserts

There were a lot of family groups in the dining room and it felt very homely, perfect for a Christmas lunch.

Sunset as we were leaving Fussen

We took the 3.05pm train back to Augsburg arriving around 5pm, only to find that the bomb emergency was not yet over and we could not leave the station. The Augsburg central city area had been involved in a planned evacuation for Christmas Day to enable a recently discovered World War 2 bomb to be defused. Residents were ordered to leave by 10am and the city area was cordoned off. Eventually around 7pm we were able to make our way home! The rest of the evening was spent packing for our return flight to Melbourne tomorrow evening.