Fairytale Fussen

Imagine small clusters of white-walled houses with sloping tiled roofs; their windows framed by dark wood shutters and window boxes filled with bright flowers. Now imagine these houses nestled amongst rolling green hills dotted with brown or black and white cows, interspersed with pockets of ‘Christmas tree’ pine forests; all this set before a backdrop of high grey mountain peaks sprinkled with patches of white snow sparkling in the sunlight. Now throw in a life-sized Disneyland-like castle (in fact the castle that is said to have been the inspiration for Walt Disney’s logo) and you have the stuff that fairytales are made of. This if Fussen.

Well, this is more the surrounds of Fussen. The town centre itself is a small network of cobble-stoned pedestrian streets lined with the pastel coloured walls of shops and restaurants, overlooked by a tall clock tower that chimes on the hour.

Fussen is a small town near the Alps in Bavaria, Germany. On one of our days in Fussen we walked along the river to Austria…only a few kilometres away! Unfortunately there was only a small convenience store there and nobody to stamp our passports. We did see some beautiful scenery along the way though, detouring up a big hill to see views of lakes and mountains. On the way back we found one of the steepest slides we’ve ever seen, just going down a small hill off the side of the road. A daring Theresa slid down so fast she got airborne at the end and landed on her bum in the dirt. No injuries. Further on we found a group of cows wearing cow bells and sounding very musical as they chomped at the grass and scratched themselves against the water tank. Theresa tried to get close to the cows for a photo and discovered the hard way that the fence separating us from the cows was an electric fence. Unfortunately I stopped filming just before she got electrocuted. Still no injuries.