After a good breaky of salami, cheese and bread at our Pension (that seems to be a typical Bavarian breaky) we jumped on the bus to visit the famous Ludwig castles; Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. They were just out of Füssen in a smaller village. Even early in the morning and mid winter it was busy!
We left the lazies at the bottom of the hill waiting for the horse and cart or bus and started the 45min walk up the hill. It really wasn't that bad and with the snow covered forest it was beautiful surroundings. The castle was quite impressive but not as "pretty" as I had hoped. And I had an idea in my head that it would be white for some reason, but it was grey like a lot of castles. Maybe I'd seen too many disney land castle pictures. 
We climbed up the back hill to get a better view of the castles, the valley and the Hohenschwangau village. The views were spectacular, it really is a magical place, made all the better with snow. It's just destroyed by all the people! We walked up to Mariesbücke (Mary's bridge) which had great views over Neuschwanstein (sadly with scaffolding) but there were so many people there it really took away from the experience. We trekked further up the hill and found a cool quiet view but we soon lost that too so we slowly made our way back down the hill using snow covered back trails.
By the time we got to the bottom the area was packed! Down in the town there were people everywhere and massive queues for the horses and bus (use your legs people!). We knew it was time to get outta there. And it was only midday! I am so happy we went there so early. Back in Füssen we were starving but there was nothing open. Not even a tiny bakery, it seems they take their Sundays seriously here. We resorted to chocolate bars from the gas station. hehe
Prior to arriving in Germany we hadn't really worked out what we were doing between Füssen and getting to Cologne for New Years. We had quite a few days so we figured it'd be fine... unfortunately I sort of misjudged how far away Cologne actually was so we soon realised we were running out of time to get ourselves back up the country. So we decided to skip the south half of the Romantic Road and head straight to Augsburg from Füssen, stay a night there and then head off first thing in the morning to make sure we would manage to spend some time in the small villages in the north half of the Romantic Road.
Boarding our train to Augsburg in Füssen I realised Nick was missing his backpack... with my passport and wallet in it! Crap! He had left it on the floor of the train station! Double crap! He bolted back to the station, I don't know if I've ever seen anyone run so quickly. I was freaking because a train load of people had just gotten off that very train and walked through the very small station and would have easily spotted the bag. Luckily for us the Germans are a very honest people (or at least the ones at that train station on that day were) and the bag was still there! Meanwhile I was standing in the train door in the hope that if they couldn't close the door the train wouldn't be able to leave and I wouldn't be stranded on a train with no tickets, no money, no passport, no phone and no Nick! It was either that or try to lug two extremely heavy bags off the train on my own, not something I think I was physically capable of doing at that point.
Oh well another very close call and Nick was back on the train with all our belongings accounted for. I think someone is definitely looking out for us on this trip! In Augsburg we found our hostel on the otherside of town and also found ourselves debating with the owner on the price we'd booked it for.. not an easy task in another language. By this stage I was getting better at deciphering German and could even pick up odd things but I'm sure this guy was making it more difficult for us by pretending his English was worse than it was. We managed to settle on a price and we practically passed out we were so tired. We really didn't see anything of Augsburg but it really didn't look very interesting, sleep was much more important at that stage!
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