Day 1 – Arrive In Germany – Fussen
This was the girls first international trip to a non-English speaking country outside of Italy. Mimi Sasso flew to Munich from Newark and took the train to Munich central and then another to Fussen – she was perfect for this trip as she taught German in high school and made it easier to navigate food orders. We flew from Naples Italy to Munich, rented a car from Budget – intermediate wagon manual ($256.82) – and then drove from Munich Airport to Fussen, which was about an 1 hour 55 minutes. It was only 100 miles, but it was mainly back roads and getting stuck behind farm equipment. The drive is stunning once you get south of the city as there are farm fields as far as the eye can see that run right into the alps. Bike trails are absolutely everywhere – there is no wonder the Germans can drink so much beer and not gain weight!
In Fussen, we stayed at Hotel Schlosskrone, which was a treat. it was centrally located and had underground parking. The rooms were nice, beds were comfortable and the main walking street Reichenstraße is right across the street. Fussen is located right at the base of the Alps and on a beautiful river. Views from the bridge are awesome with the Alps in the background. After arrival we went and had a cafe, an adult beverage in the plaza, and window shopped the cool Bavarian stores. The girls even found Dobby from Harry Potter.
After about 2 hours, we went back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. We took a quick drive out to the Schwangau Castle Brewery. We were treated to some good food, a playground for the kids, mini golf!, beer and a heck of a view as Neuschwanstein Castle sits right above the field where the brewery is located.
It was a great way to start our German/Austrian adventure!
Day 2 – Neuschwanstein Castle, Tegelberg Area, Salzburg
In the morning, we had an amazing breakfast at the hotel. It had everything you could every dream and even the girls were happy with their choices. We then cleaned up and got an earlier start to be the first at the Neuschwanstein Castle.
We parked in P2 for €8 for the day. We then walked up to the horse carriage waiting area right across from the Muller Hohenschwangau where we waited about 20 minutes for a carriage to fit all 5 of us. The girls really enjoyed the carriage ride because it is a tough walk up the hill to the castle. The ride is approximately 20 minutes and was €7 per person.
At the castle, you can get great views by just walking around it. However, many may want to take a tour inside. When James previously visited in 2003, visitors could still walk into the courtyard of the castle, but didn’t have to buy a ticket to go inside. Now, you cannot do that and have to buy an advanced ticket just to enter the castle walls. Consequently, we were content walking to Queen Mary’s Bridge, which is no cost and gives you amazing views of the castle and the lakes below.
After, we took a 10 minute car ride to the Tegelberg Cable Car. After parking the car, we went straight to the Tagelburg Luge, which is €3.90 per ride. Kids aged 3 to 8 can ride with an adult and the hours are 10am-5pm. The ride from sitting on the luge, being cabled up, and the trip down takes about 20 minutes. It was a ton of fun. The stick in the middle controls your speed and pushing it forward makes you go faster and holding it back slows the luge down.
We considered doing a second run, but everyone was hungry. We walked 100 feet across the parking lot to the cable care ride to mountain above Neuschwanstein Castle with awesome views of the castle as you ascend the mountain. At the top (5,500 feet above sea level), there are a bunch of hiking trails and a hang glide platform, which was fun to watch them prepare and take off. The cable car was €20.60 per person and operates 9-5pm. The mountain top also has a restaurant, Panoramarestaurant, with spectacular views, good beer, and decent food.
We took the 10 minute ride back down on the cable car and drove 2 hours and 40 minutes from Fussen to Salzburg purposely getting lost along the way.
We arrived in Salzburg around 5. Driving through Salzburg was interesting as there are many one way streets and pedestrian-only streets. We stayed at the Allstadthotel Wolf Dietrich, which was €406 per night for a family room that had a double bed and 3 single beds. It also had an excellent breakfast. The hotel provided nearby garage parking for €16 a night. The staff at Hotel Allstadhotel Wolf Dietrich were excellent – friendly, attentive, and always willing to make suggestions.
Once checked in, we changed our cloths to go explore our new city. First stop was a pizza place in case the girls wouldn’t eat at our late dinner. Near the hotel we found All’angolo, which turned out to be a treat for them. From there, we walked down the Linzer-Gasse and window shopped. We eventually ended up in the Residenzplatz, which is stunning to watch street performers there. Next, right next door, and since it we were visiting during the Salzburg Festival (over the course of 43 days, the Salzburg Festival presents approximately 179 music (opera, concerts, and some drama) programs throughout the city at 15 venues), we went to the Kapitelplatz to watch on the outdoor big screen a previously recorded opera while sipping an aperitivo and apple juice!
Once the girls got fidgety, we went back to the hotel to change and returned to the other side of the river to eat at the Wirtshaus Elefant, which was great. We chose the outdoor seats – the people watching was interesting, the store signs in Salzberg made us think of “Ratatouille,” and the food was great.
Afterwards, we strolled around to view the street performers and ended up in the Sternarkaden beer garden where the girls played cards and we continued people watching well past their bed time. On the way back to the hotel, we walked over the Marko-Feingold-Steg bridge to get a beautiful view of Salzburg at night with a full moon.
As we continued up the Marketplatz, we discovered the “WaterFun Ball Game” located on Richard-Mayr-Gasse 1, which was very “exciting” for the kids. Basically, on a downhill pedestrian only road they created a small waterfall and filled it with plastic balls. Kids of all ages and countries would grab the balls, run it up to the water source, and then race other balls down the hill while the parents all watched with an aperitivo at the cafes lining the streets.
Day 3 – Salzburg
We woke up early, and as the theme of the other hotels, had a great breakfast. We wanted to be some of the first people to get up to the Festung Hohensalzburg, which is one of largest medieval castles in Europe and towers over Salzburg on the hill. You have 2 options of getting up to the castle, walk it or pay for a funicular railway to skip the walking (FestungsBahn). If the funicular, a Salzburg card should gain you entrance or, as we did, buy tickets in advance on GetYourGuide as well as tickets for entrance into Festung Hohensalzburg.
The views from the castle are stellar. It is built on the a cliff and built between the 11th and 17th centuries. It serves as the residence for the Salzburg for over 500 years. “It has the honor of being both the central Europe’s largest completely presreved fortress and Europe’s largest fortress from the 11th century.” Frommers. We visited the Rainermuseum, which is a military museum, and the Burgmuseum, which shows you the fortress’ history. This took about 90 minutes and another 30-45 to explore the grounds – then the girls started losing interest and craving ice cream. There are cafes with views in a couple locations, which serve as a great place for an ice cream – or a beer.
After ice creams, it was the parents turn for food and beverage. On the walk down from the fortress, we discovered Restaurant Stiegl-Keller, which was amazing! It had fantastic views of the city from the beer garden or the lounge chairs we discovered, good beer, and even better pretzels! Not to mention, the building itself was impressive and beautifully decorated. This was a home run for us and the kids.
We left, Stiegl-Keller and decided to roam the street and shop. Shopping on Getreidegasse is fantstic for those who are intrested. James and the girls, instead, went to the toy museum, Spielzeug Museum, for an hour to keep the girls occupied. It was a fairly economic way to keep them occupied and it was followed up with an ice cream street stroll.
Afterwards, we took a 30 minute stroll (with kids) down the river to Augustiner Bräustübl Müllnerbräu. Now, when you picture Germany or Austria, this is the place of your dreams. The beer is delicious, there was live music, people sitting at wooden tables under the trees, and, surprisingly, good food choices. While shopping, Silvia and Mimi Sasso bought the girls each a toy, so we got apple juice for them and they played and listened to music. We tried different beers and street food and people watched. It was great!
That night we were pretty tired. We stayed on the hotel side of the river and explored. As always, ended up at a pizza place for the kids and the WaterFun Ball Game where they played with a group of kids while we sat at a table.
Day 4 – Hallstatt
The next morning included another good breakfast and an early start to beat the traffic into Hallstatt. The drive is about 75 minutes from Salzburg, but we were warned to get there by 9-9:30 as you have to park outside of town and the parking lots fill up fast. This was all true. When we arrived around 10, we had to go a couple parking lots more away from the town to park for the night. We had to pay for parking and the hotel refunds you. There is also a free shuttle from the parking lots, but it ran too infrequently and we were impatient and walked it ourselves. This is about 20-25 minutes to the main square along the lake – it is a very pretty walk, but tough if you pack a lot – we had packed a separate smaller suitcase for our one night in Hallstatt, so came prepared.
We stayed at the Seehotel Grunerbaum, which was fantastic! We reserved the larger room for a family that could fit the 4 of us and Mimi Sasso had her own room overlooking the square.
Unfortunately, despite staring at a beautiful patio with a dock right in the lake to swim, it decided to rain for potions of our afternoon and the temperature dipped a good 10 degrees. We are told that is a frequent occurrence because of where it is located in the mountain range. Thankfully, we had reserved a room with a covered porch, so nothing a bunch of appetizers and wine couldn’t handle – the views were still fantastic!
There isn’t much of a use outlining the stores, bars, etc…. as the town is so small. We enjoyed tasting different flavored Schanps at Schnaps & Holz. However, it is definitely worth a one night stay to relax.
Day 5 – St. Gilgen, Sommerrodelbahn Strobl, Munich
This day we woke up and . . . . had breakfast! We were in no rush to leave and wanted to stay until a late checkout. After breakfast, we rented an electric boat at Boat Rental Krumbock/Schwarzmayr (43-664-1411675 — Teresa), who was recommended by hotel. The boats are not fast, but fit us all and were fun for the girls to drive. The scenery is amazing.
I believe we took the full hour on the water and even went to Obertaun to see what that town looked like – it is the town with the cable car and the boat shuttles from the train station to Hallstatt. After the boat, we walked up to the Hallstatt Ossuary where there are 2,100 painted skulls from those that passed in Hallstatt and they ran out of room in the crypt – this amazed the girls. I believe it was 2 euro each to enter, so bring cash.
Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to gether our stuff and did the long walk out-of-town to the parking lot which was exasperated by many stops at gift shops. Once in the car, we decided we wanted to take the same road up to Munich that we had taken from Salzberg as we saw many towns we may want to explore. The drive is spectacular through this region.
Our first discovery was the Sommerrodelbahn Strobl mountain luge. This . . . was . . . awesome! It crushed the Tagelberg luge. It is located just after Stobl as you are heading north from Hallstatt. The luge is about 5 minutes long and much faster then Tagelberg. Further, the views of the lake are breathtaking.
After, we stopped in St. Gilgen for lunch, which is also right on the Wolfgangsee lake. St. Gilgen is a lake resort town – it is absolutely stunning. To please the girls because of the amount of traveling we were doing that day, we chose Nilu’s Portofino for pizza and sat outside. It had nice views of the lake and was located right near a public parking lot, which was convenient. The town itself had many more fantastic selections for food. We walked from the restaurant to the main square to let the girls play in a really cool playground on the lake. We all got a gelato and an espresso and enjoyed the views and, indeed, a traditional Austrian wedding procession.
Afterwards, we headed to Cafe Nannerl for an aperitif and some pastries. Then it was on the road again to Munich, about another 2 hours.
Munich is a big city. Our hotel, Haus im Tal, was city center 2 blocks from the Marienplatz, so it took a little time to get to it once in the city limits. At Haus im Tal we had a “downtown apartment,” which was €681 total for a room that fit 4 people – there were very few choices for 4 people downtown unless you wanted to get 2 separate rooms. There was a nearby parking garage (Rieger City parking on Frauenstr.38), which was nice for €15 a day. Ensure you validate ticket at reception to get the discounted rate! Otherwise, there is a higher rate at the garage.
Once situated at the hotel, we walked 5 minutes to the Marienplatz, which was much different then I remembered it. Munich had become a much busier city – it was packed and not as enjoyable as previous trips as a result. From there, of course, the girls wanted pizza. Luckily, Eataly has spread its corporate wings into Germany, which provided a great option we knew they would love. It is just south of the Marienplatz (about a 10 minute walk).
From there, we walked another 10 minutes to Augustiner-Keller for some Bavarian food for the adults. We sat inside in one of the huge dining halls. This place is a Munich establishment and you could easily get lost in the myriad of dining halls. Before you allow them to sit you, be sure to walk the facility to see which room has the best vibe – request to be seated there. It is so big, one room can be lively while others quiet.
We had also visited the Hofrauhaus Munchen. If your intention is to listen to music and drink there for the night – be early. By the time we arrived it was a hot, sweaty mess.
Day 6 – Munich/Ragensburg
When we woke up, we went upstairs in the hotel for a continental breakfast then headed out to explore more of Munich. Our first stop was the Englischer Garten, which is one of the largest urban parks in the world to show the girls the river surfers on the Eisbach.
This was a hit. However, we realized there was going to be a marathon run in the downtown that day and decided there were too many people considering the other cities we had visited. Consequently, we jumped in the car and drove 70 minutes up to Ragensburg where Grandma Sasso had studied in college and was very excited to show the girls. We parked the car at an underground parking lot near Tiefgarage am Theater.
First stop was the In ReaAlte Linde Biergarten where Mimi Sasso enjoyed many days and even brought her Dad to visit. When James was studying abroad, they had also visited this biergarten with his mom! This place has very good views of the city and the boats going by, good food, and most imporantly in Germany – great beer. There are a bunch of picnic tables under tree cover, so it can make a great afternoon if you just stay there.
After lunch, we walked across the bridge into the historic downtown, which is beautiful. As we were walking around, we heard traditional Bavarian music and found Bischofshof am Dom beer garden. This was a home run for everyone. The band plays on the stage and then walks around the beer garden playing in different areas – we had them playing right next to our table! We ended up staying for at least 2 hours and ordering appetizers because we were having so much fun.
Grandma Sasso showed the girls a couple more historic plazas within Regensburg and then we drove back to Munich.
For our last night in Germany, it was only fitting that we had Italian. We ate at Ristorante Casalingo for dinner in Munich because it had pizza, beer, good wine – we were so bloated from all the beer and German food, we just couldn’t do it anymore! The restaurant actually had good apple cider the girls enjoyed! After dinner, we had our last Barvarian beers in the Beirgarten Viktualienmarkt while listening to music outside.
Day 7 – Go Home
We woke up early, drove about 40 minutes to the Munich airport and were on our way back. Final thought, the German airports beat most country’s we have visited.
silandjamestravel 
Posted on June 18, 2023
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