GERMANY - Füssen, in and around

Next we hopped on the efficient German train system and travelled down to Füssen, a small town on the banks of the Lech river 5 km from the Austrian border.

We took a wombling 3 hour round trip through the district of Bad Faulenbach (famous for its sulfurous water spring, mud baths and natural baths), and along the Faulenbach valley to lake Alatsee.

The walk back past Füssen's 4 beautifully picturesque baby lakes Obersee, Mittersee, Gipsweiher and Gisploch took us to a tranquil little pub right on the shore of lake Mittersee (the big photo below), where we were able to top off our day's Alpine safari by enjoying some more fantastic German beer - served by a man who's moustache was, whilst probably quite authentically Bavarian, also quite incredibly creepy. Obersee and Mittersee are renowned for their 'bathing stations', and they definately get 5 aesthetic stars, but we'll let them keep their stations, coz they're just, well.. weird.

Check out the video below - for some reason all Bavarian cows wear bells. All the time. The crazy bell ringing is a constant companion when in the Bavarian countryside. I'm surprised that there are actually any cows left alive in Bavaria - self respecting cows in any other country would have committed seppuku a long time ago. Maybe Bavarian cows are deaf?