Clear skies and no rain for our entire drive from Belgium to Luxembourg to Germany to Austria to Germany! Temperatures didn’t even drop below freezing until after dark when we finally reached the Alps. Sunlight poured in the windows all day and it hardly felt like winter at all.
Two years ago we spent Valentine’s Day here in Garmisch, celebrating our arrival in Europe and not worrying at all about covid. Last year we planned to ski again but of course borders shut down again and we did nothing for five million years. Now, here we are again!
Chris and I stayed nearby in Fussen 14 years ago (!!!) on our very first trip to Germany. We made up a song about “Fussin’ in Fussen” for any unpleasantness in the vicinity. This afternoon we hit traffic and didn’t arrive in Fussen, the town below Neuschwanstein Castle, until about 10 minutes after sunset. As we remembered, everything closed at 6pm. The kids were hungry. Eloise discovered she left her jacket at home in her excitement to get on the road this morning.
We dug Eloise’s ski jacket out of the back. We found somewhere for dinner and had draft Paulener beer, venison goulash with spaetzle and cranberry sauce etc etc, and hit the road in the dark for the last hour of driving.
“Would you say there was a little fussin’ when we stopped here?” Chris asked as we walked back to the car, the castle, glowing and swanlike, poised in the trees overhead.
“Why yes,” I raised my eyebrows. “We do have to have some fussin’ in Fussen.”
“Wouldn’t be right not to,” Chris said.
There will be no fussin’ in Garmisch… unless Eloise leaves her jacket behind again.