Füssen (or how to eat a lot of cake)

Along the road we were, minding our own cycling when all of the sudden, out of nowhere, who do we find?? The nice old couple from Riaño!! What were the odds??!

Well… quite a few since in fact they are my parents and it was my birthday the next day and we had arranged to meet and hang out for a few days again. Nonetheless it was a treat to see them once again…

This time it was a bit further from Lisbon, so they could not just get into the car and enjoy a nice road trip, and it their journey involved both a train and a plane. But, the most remarkable thing is not how far they were willing to travel… It was that they embarked on the train just as there newest grandchild was about to be born.

The birth in itself was not unexpected but it was expected to be later in October, which is the reason why the trip around my birthday and therefore before the expected due date fitted somewhat nicely. There were discussions over who’s birthday she would compete; my brother and our father both having anniversaries near the expected date. (Yes, almost my entire family is born in October, go figure…). However it seems little Diana was not keeping to plans and decided to compete instead with my own birthday and was born just the day before.

If before we met in Riaño, now we met in Füssen. Our criteria of places to meet seems to be towns with five to six letters and a lake nearby… This time we didn’t have a mountain view out the window, but we had a cosy dinning room next to the kitchen. So cosy in fact that the house had a huge (less cosy) living room which we never set foot inside for all the four days we were there.

The corner seats just next to the kitchen were just far too cosy. You see, having a kitchen is always a perk for us. If there is one thing we miss about having a more permanent fixed home is having access to an oven. Bread, pizza and roasted veggies are always things we dream about. This was no exception and the oven had quite a busy time. Besides all those things we also ended up roasting a rather well-sized pumpkin we picked up from one of the many, pick-and-pay pumpkin-selling places by the side of the road. This seems to be a thing in these parts of the world.

Oh and there was cake. Delicious ginger chocolate birthday cake… ;)))

Besides cooking there was something else that entertained our time. Something that every now and then we also have in the tent: movie night!!

You see, each country has its Christmas classics, and in Portugal that used to be ‘Sound of Music’*, ‘Home Alone’ and ‘E.T.’ (now-a-days replaced by ‘Harry Potter’, ‘Lord of the Rings’ and the sort..). When I found out Sarah had not seen this musical Alpine classic, I begged my parents to bring the (overused) DVD from Lisbon. Let’s just say that we had sing-a-longs around the dinner table and music was stuck in our heads for many days to come.

It might sound that we spent all day inside, but it isn’t true. The days were by now shorter so the program could not be as action packed as it had been before in Picos, but we still had our outings.

We made a visit to the town of Füssen with lunch in a bio cafe with delicious cakes, followed by a double descent in the local ‘luge’** making us feel like two small kids. We made a small hike*** to Austria and around a beautiful lake, followed by yummy apple strudel and hot chocolate. And finally, we had a Bavarian meal that turned out to be cheaper than it should have been, followed by more delicious cake and a cable-car ride to amazing views over the Garmisch-Partenkirchen snow covered mountains.

Last but not least, we decided to wrap up the trip by playing mini golf. Or as Sarah calls it, crazy golf.  I tried to convince my parents to play along, but as my mother said, we had two players, a score keeper and a photographer.

After yet another delicious slice of cake with amazing views over the Füssen lake we said so-long, farewell, goodbye, auf wiedersehen, adieu, family “Von Vicente” style…

They could finally go and see their new granddaughter Diana, waiting to drool on the shoulders of her grandparents.

Thanks cotas, hope to see you again soon!

 

* https://youtu.be/Coee656uPCk ;p
** https://youtu.be/OVcwcvwzRPs (we didn’t go half as fast I think..)
*** It seems it was the only way to get into Austria given that the rental car would charge just by crossing the border…

 

( The credit for some of this beautiful photos go to my dad 😉 )

One thought on “Füssen (or how to eat a lot of cake)

  1. Elso Pinto says:

    Olá Pedro e companheira, grande aventura e bonitos instantâneos.
    Continuação de bons momentos e que regressem bem.
    Ab

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