Discovering somewhere new

Have you ever been on holiday and felt that you are on a voyage of discovery, finding places where others haven’t been before?

Well that happened to me when I took my family to the pretty German town of Fussen (Fuessen) in Southern Bavaria this summer. This was a very odd feeling to have as the town is on two major tourist routes (the Romantic Road and the German Alpine Road) and was bustling with tourists when we were there. As well as Germans, there were significant numbers of Italians, Spanish, Czechs and Japanese – even some road signs were written in Japanese! However, we went several days without seeing another British person. I have traveled through Europe and been to some quite off the beaten track places in Australia and North America, but no matter how remote, it was never too long before I heard a British accent. Whether package tourists or adventurous backpackers, Brits do seem to get everywhere.So imagine my surprise when just 2 hours flying time from home, I was in a place where English only seemed to be used as a neutral language of communication, by Scandinavians or Spanish who didn’t speak German.

As well as the olde worldy charm of the town itself, Fussen is surrounded by pretty lakes and the German Alps rise up abruptly and quite magnificently immediately to the south. The town is also very close to Germany’s number one tourist attraction, King Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein Castle. Set amidst the Bavarian mountains and forests, looking out over a beautiful lake and Alpine peaks, it looks like something straight out of a fairy tale. Even on an English language tour here, we only spotted one other British family!

This is somewhere British readers can feel like they’re newly discovering on behalf of their nation!

For more on this destination, click here