Von Nürnberg nach Wien
About a month ago I committed within myself to plan a trip to a German speaking country, with only a week’s notice. I’ve wanted to go to Germanic Europe for more years than I can count (probably as a backlash to my family exclusively going on hot European holidays while growing up), and I’d catastrophically failed a solo trip to Estonia and Finland two years prior to this, leaving unfinished business!
The Plan
I needed to decide on a plan for this trip, and I saw the first step as deciding on a few general locations in the same area of Germany. A good friend, named L, happened to be in Vienna around the time I was wanting to do this, so they suggested I meet them in Vienna for some time. An end-point was decided then. Upon searching for typical tourist pilgrimages in Germany, I came across both Neuschwanstein Castle and the town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Both looked amazing, South German, and plausibly reachable, and so some targets were set!
Mainly based on flight availability, I decided to start with a flight from London to Nuremberg; make my way to the neighbouring Rothenburg ob der Tauber; take a lengthy journey down to Füssen (the closest town to Neuschwanstein Castle); another train to Munich; and finally take a train to Vienna, where I would eventually depart for London.
I won’t want to bore anyone (including myself) with recounting how I scheduled things, but this is the journey I eventually mapped out for myself:
Purple shows timings of train journeys and nights in locations. Red is the train’s path as best as I could map out. Orange are my stop.
Day 1
After considering taking a day in Nuremberg to look around, I decided it would probably be better to have that time in other places on the trip, and so I went from Nuremberg airport directly to the Hauptbahnhof (one of my favourite new words from the trip!). I in fact ended up running for a train at the station, so I didn’t even have time to glance at Nuremberg.
I boarded my first Deutsche Bahn, and was immediately impressed at the size of the trains. In every dimension they are larger than ones in the UK. I was less impressed by the immediate delays… This meant that I missed my connection at Neustadt (Aisch), and had to spend an hour in the middle of nowhere with no internet. This was also the first instance I realised just how little German I knew as I tried to order a bottle of water from a small tuck shop at the station.
Nevertheless, I made it on to my second train and was on my way to Rothenburg ob der Tauber! I made it there with enough time to check in to my hotel in the centre of town, and then I got my first food of the trip!
I found the most German food I could at a reaosnbaly price and it was delicous!
Day 2
The next day started with gorging myself on a large German buffet at the hotel:
There was good reason to be eating so much, as the 7 hours of train journey I’d planned for myself later overlapped lunch. Before then, I investigated the town with an early start!
The town was a beautifully preserved mediaeval art piece. It felt not dissimilar to parts of York in the UK, but with far less commercialisation, and far more of a focus on maintaining the exact town that existed there in the middle ages. As well as York, I also could not help but be reminded of one of my favourite boardgame obsessions, Carcassonne! The final culinary delight from Rothenburg was a local favourite - Schneeballs (a name which made me chuckle):
The schneeball was simply a shortbread that had been formed into a dense hyperbolic surface, and once baked, coated in a wide selection of toppings. I opted for the strawberry <3
The rest of the afternoon was spent on what was planned to be an up to 7 hour train journey with 4 transfers. I was really looking forward to this adventure, and had planned a lot of transfer time in to make sure things went smoothly. The journey was: Rothenburg ob der Tauber -> Steinach -> Augsburg Hbf -> Buchloe -> Kaufbeuren -> Füssen. The trains and connections actually went extremely well - and it only took 5-6 hours! I loved every second of experiencing the Deutsche Bahn. The stations were gigantic; the trains were clean, sometimes double-deckered, huge, and comfortable. I think I have to put DB over the UK’s National Rail, and am looking forward to any encounter with DB I may have in the future. Also, this dog was with me for a few hours which was nice :)
I arrived at Füssen in the dead of night and headed to my hostel. This was my first hostel experience, and it was quite anxiety inducing, mainly because of the lack of safe places to put the items I had on me, including L’s expensive camera! In reality, the sleep was fine, and my mild fear of hostels had been lessened.
Day 3
Day three had one of the biggest missions on the holiday - Neuschwanstein Castle. It’s a beautiful Bavarian castle, backed by the Alps and constructed at an 800 meter elevation. I did not know much about it, but I knew I had to get to it.
I worked out fairly quickly from a tourist office in Füssen that one cannot actually go into Neuschwanstein with a backpack, and since I was a solo traveller who had checked out of their accommodation, I was excluded from entering. However, there is a famous viewing bridge called Marienbrücke (Marie’s Bridge) which was free and accessible to all who can make the ascent.
I set off on the path out of Füssen and towards the castle, and caught my first glimpse early on:
At the end of the flat part of the walk to the castle there was an outpost called Hohenschwangau, filled with tourist buildings galore. I was able to collect some currywurst and brezel to fuel the ascent.
Climbing up to Marienbrücke was not the hardest walk, but I certainly broke a sweat, in part due to the good weather. I always prefer a cold climb! I loved the signage on the route though:
Once at the crowded Marienbrücke, situated over a beautiful alpine waterfall, one could quite easily see the majesty of Neuschwanstein. Here’s a couple of photos. I felt I needed to get a photo with the castle, but please excuse the expression on my face. It is not disgust at anything other than the sun burning into my retinas.
After spending time taking photos up there and talking to a nice group of Philadelphians, I made my way back down towards Füssen, stopping off for some hat browsing and ice cream on the way.
I had an evening train to catch, but some time to burn. The tourist office had also mentioned a brand new treetop bridge system in the south of Füssen, along the border of Austria. I was pretty sure I had the time to check it out before my train to Munich, so I took a lovely walk to the Austrian border where I was graced with beautiful alpine views all around.
I crossed the border by foot a few times, ping-ponging between the two countries above the treeline, before eventually getting on a bus back to Füssen train station. On the bus back I was able to read my first full “complex” sign!
“Eating and drinking is not allowed on the bus!!!!!!!!!!”. Amazing.
The start of the evening was spent aboard another train, this time to Munich. The train was peaceful and an older style, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Here are some photos I took to pass the time.
I arrived in Munich with the most amazing foggy weather, and found a fantastic schnitzel place just down the road from the station. It was packed with hipster Germans, must be good - right?
A second hostel hosted me that evening.
Day 4
Munich was planned out as the first day without any travel. A day of rest, perhaps. The day started with a free breakfast at the hostel, but no huge goal made the rest of the day a bit aimless. I walked around going to whatever looked interesting on Google Maps, or what caught my fancy while wandering. The first place which caught my fancy was Viktualienmarkt, an old city market with a wide variety of food. I could not help but see what German fish and chips was like. ;)
The chips were bang on, but alas, the fish could use some work.
Revitalised by British cuisine, I walked on to Neus Rathaus and Frauenkirche.
Both were quite underwhelming to me for some reason. Maybe it was my mood on the day, maybe the red brick of Frauenkirche was actually ugly - who knows. The highlight of the buildings for me was the cenotaph of Emperor Louis IV - it was a beautifully sculpted place of rest.
I think the vibe of the city was getting me down at this point - too many tourists; people weren’t as friendly as Füssen; and the city wasn’t too interesting to me. I went in search of nature, and found it in the form of the “English garden”. This was just a substantial city park, not dissimilar to Hyde Park in London, but there was one cool thing which really perked me up there. Surfing!!!
I could not believe that there were so many people just surfing the aggressive river that runs through the park. I must have stood and watched for 30 minutes. It must be so much fun for the people doing it!
Finally, dinner. At this point I was still feeling very down and was really just waiting to get back into train station and rail travel. I think I had decided that the adventure and mild stress of getting yourself to places on time by using larger systems out of your control was really my happy place. I had dinner in a famous beer hall named Hofbräuhaus am Platzl. I did not like it. The food was okay, although I think I ordered badly…
Knödel and Spätzle were not the play to make. Something about the combination of gelatinous pork belly, gelatinous Knödel, and dry Spätzle didn’t play well in my stomach and I could not finish for fear of it finishing me first.
A disappointing end to an underwhelming day in Munich, but turning up at the hostel before bedtime was a far better experience than turning up in the dead of night like some pathetically sleepy burglar. After watching a tourist who had something in their system get arrested by local police in the hostel lobby, I got a great night’s sleep.
Day 5
The primary objective of day 5 was to get from Munich to Vienna! This was on one direct train, which was very exciting for me and would take around 5 hours. For some reason I didn’t take many photos, but here is my platform at Munich Hauptbahnhof and some evidence of some Nintendo Switch games I played with a nice German guy for a few hours on the train. He wasn’t too good at Mario Kart but destroyed me on Smash :)
I was greeted at Vienna Hauptbahnhof by L. She had made a sign to greet me, which I could not stop laughing at for a number of minutes. Below is a picture of said sign, artfully composed with an image of me experiencing a Viennese water fountain. I was assured these were a big deal, and that Viennese water was the best around. It tasted alright.
We got a meal where I sampled the local variety of Fanta with confusion, and spent an hour hanging out in the city before getting an early and good night’s sleep.
Day 6
A packed day, thanks to L, who I was very excited was volunteering to show me around. Stephansdom in Stephansplatz was up first, along with the surrounding shopping area, which included a Spar built by the gods themselves. In the UK, Spar is a second-rate garage chain; in Austria, it seems to be where God makes nectar.
Then we spent some time at the University of Vienna where L needed to do some things, followed by a tour of Ringstraße. Ringstraße seemed to have every important building in Vienna, and as such, was very pretty!
We then went quite far out of the centre of Vienna, and took a bus to a viewing point over the city. It was lovely up there. We ate Viennese pastries while watching some local news crews shoot a segment about flooding.
We returned to the city centre to go to Wurstelprater, a huge amusement park which was celebrating Halloween that night to the full! Here I was introduced to Lángos, a much raved about food by L, and I was able to convince myself to go on a super fun water slide! I didn’t go on much else because of my own anxieties about rides. One day I’ll return though.
I returned to my hotel and enjoyed the evening, well fed and high on the absurdity of how I got there.
Day 7
Day 7 started without a friendly Austrian companion. She was meeting friends, and so I went adventuring myself a bit! Naschmarkt was the target, followed by finding a proper wiener schnitzel in Wien!!
Both of these were achieved without too many issues, although this was a public holiday in Austria, so the market was not open, aside from food spots!
I found myself a schnitzel at a nice place named Centimeter… it had some very strange decor, but the food and drink was delightful. I was greeted by L in the last 20 minutes of eating, which not only painted my face with a smile, but was just in time for her to help me finish off the plate!
In the evening, it had been a long-standing plan for me to go with L to a gathering of her friends to play boardgames and hang out! I was terrified, but I knew that if these were friends of L’s, then they can’t be that bad. The only issue is that they were all German speakers by nature, and would have to speak primarily in English for me to understand. To take my mind off things, L took me to the Danube for a little walk before attending this party, and the timing with the sunset was perfect.
I didn’t take any photos of the party, in an attempt to not put myself more out of place than I already was, but I was very happy to have felt so welcomed and at home in the group! I’m unsure if they liked me or found me a nuisance, but I hope for the former.
After a little chat with L into the night, I headed back to my warm hotel and prepared for the final sleep of the holiday.
Day 8
I woke up on this day with all of the following feelings. Sleepiness, sadness, and excitement. There was still time left to adventure Vienna a little bit on the way to the Hauptbahnhof, and so I did. I was to rendezvous with L there, and take a train with her to the airport where our separate planes would depart within a few hours of each other.
We boarded the (incorrect) double-decker train, ticking off another item on my list of dream things to do, before getting the final train to the airport. I was happy in the train, but dreading the end of this lovely German/Austria dream. Regardless, I got through it - the flight home was fun, and I felt surprisingly good by the time I got back to my flat in London.
Final Thoughts
Overall, the holiday was incredible. I learnt a lot about myself, what I like, who I am, what Germanic Europe is like, and so very very much more. I have no regrets about the holiday at all… well, maybe not going on the scary rides at Prater… but apart from that, nothing. Here’s the final photo L took of me as I happily sat on the second floor of a train for the first time in my life.
Thanks for the great stint in Austria, L.
