When we arrived in Konstanz to our bed and breakfast it was too dark to take pictures so I snapped a few after breakfast before we headed out. Breakfast was the normal European fair I’ve come to expect here. So basically, it’s delicious. We all order hot chocolate whenever possible, too.
Our bed and breakfast hotel, Waldhaus Jakob, was right on the edge of Lake Konstanz. Too bad it was foggy when we left so we never got a good look at the view. This was the best we got…
Today was ‘drive through as many countries as you can’ day. We drove through four. We left Germany and headed into Switzerland, which was only a few miles away from out hotel. We stopped at a gas station and bought two big bags of mini chocolates. Mark handed me the bag and said ‘you’d better like it. That just cost us $60’. There went my souvenir money for the day. And on top of that we had to buy a vignette (an autobahn pass) for Switzerland ($40) and Austria ($10).
I didn’t take many pictures while in Switzerland. We only drove for about an hour through the country. Here’s the best picture I got of something Swiss.
Our next stop: Liechtenstein! How many people can say they’ve been to the country of Liechtenstein. I can! And so can Jeff, Alison and Mark. Here’s proof.
This was the border crossing. Nothing too scary. Just drive slow.
The only thing we did in Liechtenstein was stop at a gas station in Schaanwald, use the restroom and Jeff bought a few cookies. Nothing fancy, but we all wanted to be able to say we’ve been there. The mountains there were incredible! The sun was just coming over what is called the Three Sisters mountain. I’ve never seen such huge mountains. Unfortunately, the sun was in the wrong place to get any good pictures of this mountain.
A few miles down the road from Schaanwald was the border into Austria. Our drive through Liechtenstein was super short. We chose Feldkirch as our stopping point in Austria. It was lunch time so we found a parking lot and walked through some beautiful cobblestoned streets in what we think was a high-end shopping district.
Alison stopped to smell the flowers and look around at a flower shop.
Right by the Ill river was a cool water feature with a rotating marble ball.
The Ill river was just so blue. It was the first thing I noticed about it. The picture doesn’t do it justice. It’s probably super clean since we were so high up in the mountains.
We couldn’t find a good sit-down restaurant for lunch we ended up in a café/bakery and had these delicious pretzel bun ham sandwiches. Oh, and we had to have a pastry, of course. We left shortly after lunch to head back into Germany to the town of Füssen. We saw so much of the beautiful mountains and valleys of Austria for the next two and a half hours in the state of Tirol. So many mountains!
Mark was a great chauffer and stopped a lot on the side of the road so we could take pictures or enjoy some of the views for a few minutes more. We noticed a few days ago that people out here put bells on their cows. Driving by you could hear their cowbells ringing. Here’s a not-so-little Bessie with her cute cowbell on. There were probably 30 cows where we stopped and the sound was very similar to wind chimes. Alison and I loved it. So much so, that we are now on the hunt for a cowbell souvenir.
More beautiful mountain scenery.
I don’t even know the names of all the mountain ranges and villages we passed but this one was amazing. An old church or castle-like building on the top of the mountain with a newer church in the clear valley below it, to the right.
I had to zoom in a lot with the camera so this should tell you a lot about how high these small villages are from the highway in the valley where we were.
This post has so many pictures but I can’t help it. Austria is amazing.
The main reason for taking this route through Austria was so we could see Zugspitze. It is the tallest mountain in Germany. It’s on the border of Austria and Germany. And here it is!
Perfect picture moment.
Alison and I went straight for the souvenir shop while the boys took pictures and found, to our utmost disappointment, that it was closed. Seriously? Who closes a souvenir shop at 4:00 pm on a Monday? Like I said, Alison and I are still on the hunt for a good cowbell.
We hopped back in the car and finally arrive in Füssen around 5:00 pm with just enough daylight to explore Hohes Schloss, Füssen’s castle. Before I get to the castle info here’s a picture of our sweet room here in Füssen. So much better than last night’s B&B.
Onto the castle! Just a bit of trivia for you…Füssen is the highest town in Bavaria.
My inner Karate Kid comes out every once in a while.
Notice the paintings all around the inside of this courtyard. They are 3-D paintings which Jeff read about (in German) from the sign. If I remember right these date back to the late 1400’s.
Just outside the castle walls is a state park we explored. The leaves were falling everywhere and made a great backdrop for some pictures.
Jeff and Alison, the two lovebirds.
I guess we were both looking at Alison when Jeff took our picture with our camera. Notice the hats we are wearing? It was about 45 degrees. Brrr!
I never know what Mark is going to take a picture of when he has camera duty. We look like serious tourists here in the streets of Füssen looking through our Rick Steve’s Guide to Germany book. We were hungry and actually took Rick’s advice and went to a restaurant on his list.
The streets are so beautiful here.
We went to Restaurant Aquila for dinner. It was the perfect choice for a cold night and got the perfect table off to the side away from most of the crowds.
Mark and I ordered potato soup for an appetizer. Yum!
I was in the mood for Italian so I chose pasta carbonara which was so good.
Mark chose currywurst, bratwurst with a delicious curry sauce.
After our delicious meal we headed back to Hotel Sonne to wind down and blog about the day’s excursions. Jeff and Alison added three new countries to their list and Mark and I added two. I’d say it was a successful day!
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