Tap Tap Tap,
I woke up to a knock on the door of the hotel room. It was the owner with two people from the car hire company, I felt relieved that I had a car, but what did I get? After giving them all my details, we walked to the car park and I asked, “so, what have I got?”, “Q3” they replied, “here it is”.
I took the keys and said thank you. It was a manual diesel Audi Q3. I hadn’t driven a left hand drive manual before and I wasn’t really a fan of SUVs either, but beggars can’t be choosers.
“Hey Ajay, I got an Audi Q3” I announced as I walked into his room. I correctly guessed his reaction which was a mix of annoyance of me getting a new Audi and relief that the holiday can continue without any change of plans.
Ajay decided that the Q3’s boot would take all his luggage and equipment too.
Once we had left the hotel, we immediately went searching for a petrol station and couldn’t find one close by. I was slowly adapting to sitting on the left of the car and using a gear stick with my right hand, this required quite a bit of concentration initially.
After we found a petrol station, we went through a few tunnels, which Ravi kept forgetting to turn on his lights for. The sky opened up around noon and we had to deal with the sudden downpour. Ajay also discovered that BMW drivers in Germany were also psychos after one tried to overtake him and almost hit oncoming cars in the rain.
Once we arrived in Fussen and our hotel which was the Steakhaus Fussen and Tapas Bar, we played some tetris with the cars to fit them into the car park and headed into town.
Immedaitely opposite our hotel was a rather nice waterfall and series of rapids. Our surroundings were stunningly beautiful, and the rain had cleared at the perfect time for us to enjoy the walk into the town.
Ravi found a cat he really wanted to stroke and followed it down the street, the cat was quite indifferent to him but that didn’t deter him. he managed to stoke the cat before it decided that it didn’t like Ravi and ran off.
The river Lech which flows through Fussen is a weird shade of milky turquoise, this is due to the minerals in the water. The colour was stunning. Ravi also felt like feeding some ducks so we spent some time at the river’s edge. I grabbed one of the cameras and practiced some photography whilst Ravi tried to break up a fight between two ducks.
After wandering round the town, we encountered a middle east goods shop called Marrakesh run by a really nice Morrocan man. He even gave Ajay a sheet of goats leather.
After that we sat down to eat dinner and discuss the plan for the next day we decided we had to get up early to get to the fairy tale castle. After eating we went for a walk around Fussen and encountered a dry ski slope which Ravi got very excited as he explored the area. We also found a frog which tested the bounds of Ravi’s love of animals as he wouldn’t touch it, double standards indeed.
Once back at the hotel we settled in for the night. I didn’t sleep well. The room I had was very small and the bathroom did not have a door. Because of this I heard a lot of plumbing noises as the toilet wasn’t very far from the bed. Half-way through the night one of my bedroom windows swung open due to the wind. This startled me and made the night even worse. As the bed was right up against the windows I could hear a lot of howling wind noises as the area forms a valley. However, Ajay and Ravi said they had a very good night sleep, so I got the short straw with the room.
Tabish
Long Way There 