on the road to Fussen, breasts and Schweindorf!

Schwandorf town square

I chose Schwandorf because I knew that logistics late in the night in Munich might be a bit difficult during Oktoberfest. Every hostel and hotel in the city had been booked a year before, and the same was true in most of the cities with direct connections to the beer festival. A quick note on Oktoberfest: you can reserve spots in tents, but you've got to make those reservations a year in advance, especially if you're planning on going during a weekend. If you're planning a visit during the week, then stop by early and you'll likely get in the tent. But besides the tents, there are loads of other stuff, like beer gardens, carnival rides and bratwurst vendors galore, not to mention the ever-present boob show from the tightly knotted dirndls. Fun for everyone, truly. Though my dad wasn't feeling it, so he preferred to skip it, at least on the way into Germany, and we didn't really have so much time anyway. 

The hike from the hotel, scenic and foggy

The hotel in Schwandorf, the Hotel Waldlust, was the closest we could get. The hotel is about a 15 minute walk from the train station, which puts it about 10 minutes outside of the town center. Schwandorf is a small town, but there are a couple of sites to see there, namely Kruezberg Wallfahrtskirche, which we didn't really get to see, but it looked nice from the train station. As I don't read German, a brief scan of the website seems to show that it's a Carmelite monastery run by some Indian monks. It looks kind of newish as well. Clearly a must see.

When we arrived at the hotel late that night, it was already closed. However, on the desk was our room key and a friendly sign saying “Hello! You’re breakfast is at 7:00 to 10:00 in the morning!” The room was surprisingly comfortable and huge – ours was a four bed room, complete with a living room and a micro-sized bathroom. The sinks were strategically placed in the living room since the bathroom was so small. The breakfast greeted us in the morning with fresh coffee, fried eggs, and the regular continental fair, but all exceeding expectations.

View of Kruezberg Wallfahrtskirche from the train station

There are other places in Schwandorf, as when we walked pass the small town square, we saw some Gastehofs. However, when I searched for places on google, I was using the regular Gastehaus, not realizing the Bavarian dialect switches the “haus” to a “hof”. Anyways, I don’t know German, and the Germans – at least in Bavaria – tend to be very slow adopters of technology. One is lucky to find restaurants and shops that have made the switch to credit cards! On this last trip in Rothenburg, we even saw the old, metal credit card machine that you make a pink slip impression of the card with! I imagine banking companies must sigh, perhaps weep, and definitely curse the gods every time they get a shipment of paperwork coming in from Bavaria (or Franconia).

From Schwandorf, we made it to Fussen, the summer home of the medieval bishops of Augsburg, so close near where the later kings would make their fairy tale residences. The train makes one connection in Munich, which we very narrowly missed. Munich was packed with Oktoberfest revelers, women in those aforementioned Heavenly breast-packed dirndls and men in childish lederhosen, shouting out drinking songs, while similarly dressed Asian tourists looked around wide-eyed and confused, eager to see the habits and mores of the indigenous German folks and taking lots of selfies with the beer-drinking idolaters in the back ground. There was a day when most Asian tourists would walk around with gigantic cameras the size of their head, but now they walk in packs armed each with a small cell phone and a selfie stick. I guess the selfie stick doubles a nice protection from pickpockets, as you can always beat people over the head with them and stab them.

Schwandorf... or Schweindorf?!

I was also thinking we might see some refugees in this audience, thinking of the irony of having hordes of Muslims running from war only to end up face-to-face with a previously forbidden celebration, complete with massive amounts of drinking and carnival rides. But, in what is perhaps the largest missed opportunity for Germans to integrate the refugees, none were in sight. There were, though, several squads of police forming blocks, wearing what could be described as riot gear but without helmets and shields. Either they were ready for terrorism or for drunken riots, none could quite be sure in that climate.

We made the transfer with little excitement and an hour later, we made our destination by three o’clock, staying right in the old town of Fussen at Ludwig’s Hotel.