Schwangau, Germany - Day 2

Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Guten Morgen from Germany! Today, we started our day in the small Bavarian village of Schwangau. We drove here yesterday from Munich to visit the grand Neuschwanstein Castle, a 19th-century hilltop palace built for King Ludwig II. After visiting the castle, we had a delicious German dinner at the restaurant in our hotel, and we also treated to a breakfast buffet included in our stay.

Unfortunately, Tory wasn’t feeling well this morning so she stayed behind in our hotel suite to rest while Andi, Aden, and I ventured down to the main dining room for breakfast. There was a nice spread of cold cuts, smoked fish, cheeses, fruit cocktail, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, breads, and various spreads available on the buffet table.

I noticed a woman sitting at a nearby table peeling her hard boiled egg into a small white container on the tabletop so I followed suit. “How do you know that’s what the container is for?” Andi asked me. I didn’t really, but it appeared that every table had one of these small trash cans for food scraps and wrappers. Later, Google told me that tischmülleimer (table trash cans) are popular at German breakfasts to collect all the tiny packages of cream cheese, jellies, honey, butter, and yes … egg shells. Instead of having a messy table at the end of the breakfast meal, all scraps are kept in a tiny bucket which then can be easily dumped into the garbage. The German culture definitely likes to keep things neat and orderly!

Andi, Aden, and I brought a small plate of bread, Nutella, and fruit back to our hotel room for Tory, but she wasn’t interested in eating anything. She looked terrible — her face was very pale and she was out of it. A few minutes after we returned to the room, Tory threw up in the bathroom. Poor girl was really sick.

Our plan had been to rent bicycles in Schwangau today, and then make our way into another part of Bavaria, Germany but it was clear that Tory couldn’t go anywhere today. Andi went downstairs to the hotel front desk to ask if we could stay another night at this hotel. He also asked if we could change to another hotel room, as the room we stayed in last night had outdated decor and was loud with a neighboring restaurant’s beer garden right outside our hotel room window.

Fortunately, there was another hotel suite available, so we packed up our things and moved to another room down the hallway. What’s a day without packing our bags anyway?! Our new hotel room was much more modern (by German hotel standards, that is). There were four twin beds in two separate rooms joined by a bathroom. There was also a small table and mini-fridge. This room overlooked a grocery store parking lot which Andi and I thought was much better than a noisy beer garden.

I still can’t get over the German bedding — a fitted sheet over the mattress and a folded down comforter on top with one floppy square pillow.

Tory was uncharacteristically clingy this morning, asking me to stay by her bedside. Meanwhile, Andi decided to take Aden biking without Tory and I since this activity has been on Aden’s bucket list for months. There’s a bike shop down the street, so Andi and Aden walked there and rented bikes for the day.

Andi and Aden returned to the hotel around Noon, and said the Barvarian landscape was absolutely breathtaking during their ride. He and Aden biked to the nearby town of Füssen and were this close to crossing the border into the country of Austria just a few miles away.

In our short time in this country, we’ve noticed how Germans are very much a rule-following culture. Andi said he and Aden couldn’t read one of the road signs written in German and accidentally rode their bikes along a closed sidewalk. A lady shook her fist in their direction and yelled something in her native language — oops!

Aden was on cloud nine after their bike ride, and it turned out to be a nice opportunity for Andi and Aden to spend some one-on-one time together. Unfortunately, Tory’s condition hadn’t improved while the boys were gone. She continued to vomit and sleep most of the morning.

Andi and I figured it’d be best to have lunch at the restaurant within the hotel since Tory was feeling so terribly. Plus, our dinner there last night was really delicious! Their warm German potato salad was one of the best foods I’ve eaten in a long time.

I decided to order the pork schnitzel again served with warm potato salad. Andi ordered the beef which was accompanied with a side salad, and Aden shared from our two plates.

The four of us spent a chunk of the afternoon hanging out in our hotel room. A cold front was moving into the area with blustery winds and bouts of rain outside our window. As exhausted as we were when we arrived to Germany yesterday afternoon, Andi and I were glad we took advantage of the mild weather conditions while we had them.

Between rain showers, Andi walked to the grocery store across the street to pick up some food for Tory. He returned 20 minutes later with applesauce, jello, and two local beers to try. We’re not big beer drinkers, but when in Rome… er, Germany! Fun fact: In Germany, the legal drinking age for buying and consuming beer is 16 years old.

We’ve also noticed that Germans love apple-flavored foods and drinks.

As tasty as it was, Andi said he couldn’t possibly eat another meal at the hotel restaurant, so he braved the wind and rain to grab thai take-out down the road. Andi and Aden specifically enjoyed fried rice, egg rolls, and a noodle dish together.

Such a bummer that we finally made it to Germany — the top country on Tory’s bucket list! — and she’s too sick to enjoy it. Andi and I hope she’ll be feeling better tomorrow as we’ll be forced to move on in our travels. We need to start making our way toward Frankfurt where we plan to catch a train to Paris on Friday.

More to come of our German adventure tomorrow!