The original article was published in Travel Awaits on May 21, 2022
We have been
fortunate in our travels. One of the factors that make it so is that we
have stumbled upon surprising places as a perfect base for our explorations.
When we were RVing, for example, our campground network gave us many towns from
which to make day trips. Now that we have shifted to three timeshares to travel
the world, the luck has stayed.
We usually
decide on a destination based on the availabilities of the properties in the
companies’ inventories. When we needed a location in Germany to cut the long
train trip between Innsbruck and Paris, we were presented with Oberstaufen in Germany
as an option. How I wished it had been Munich or Berlin or a popular tourist
spot like that. But let me tell you how lucky that choice turned out to be!
Oberstaufen, Germany
The small town
is host to many lodging options, including a hidden gem of the Mondi-Holiday
Hotel, a frequently awarded resort and spa chain in Europe. Our “chalet” was a
one-bedroom unit that felt very much like home so we were motivated to shop at
the local grocer and cook some hot meals. Between day trips, we also spent a
lot of time at the Wellness Center for fitness routines, spa therapies (dry or
infrared sauna, steam or dampfbath, and swims and soaks at the heated pools
and tubs. There were also table tennis, billiards, and bowling facilities. We even
dined at the exclusive Italian restaurant on site.
We soon
learned that Oberstaufen was a haven for German hikers in summer and skiers in
winter. Only 2,595 feet in average elevation, it features a unique topography
of undulating hills that create bowls of lush greenery punctuated by clusters
of homes. The 7,000 residents and the seasonal tourists are served by a small
and quaint downtown area where we were able to explore lovely shops, admire the
charming homes, and worship at the yellow and white church. There was a
convenient bus depot and a cute train station that connected the town to
elsewhere. So from this wonderful restorative base, we discovered four off-the-beaten-path towns in Switzerland,
Lichtenstein, and Germany.
St. Gallen, Switzerland
It took us
about two hours on the train to get to St. Gallen, Switzerland, close to the German-Swiss
border. We had very low expectations. We just wanted to tick off
Switzerland as another country we had visited together. But, walking on the way
to the Old Town, we stumbled upon a few blocks that were all carpeted red. It
was called Red Square. Soon I was asking my husband to photograph this
aging “model” beside a red car, sitting on a red bench, and going up some red
stairs.
At the Old
Town Center, the Tourist Information Center told us that there are 111 exquisite
balconies that adorn the buildings around the city of over 75,000. Just outside
and around the Center, we readily chanced upon six of them. But they said that
we should not miss the entire Abbey of St. Gallen since it is a UNESCO World
Heritage Site!
The Abbey’s
Cathedral is downright gorgeous but it is the Abbey Library that took our
breath away. It put us back in pre-medieval times when books were treated like
gold. The ceiling is one of a kind, not just painted, but a three-dimensional
work of art. The shelves are of heavy wood and they open up to reveal more
secrets behind. And the lovely old floor had to be protected by soft cloth
booties we had to wear! We found out
that St. Gallen was from Ireland, a true cultural and spiritual leader in the
900s. He was credited with spreading his influence into what was considered the
“heathen” Germany of the time.
Vaduz, Lichtenstein
And we were
so happy to discover that Lichtenstein, another country that we could add to
our roster of visited nations, is only two hours and a half hours away, first
by train to Feldkirch, Austria, and then by Bus 11 to Vaduz, the capital of
under 6,000 in population. In fact, the whole country has only 35,000 people, the
6th smallest country in the world.
Vaduz has a
lively tourist industry, however, despite being one of the very few capital
cities in the world without an airport or railway station. The Old Town Square
is a pedestrian area walkable in slow exploratory fashion in just an afternoon,
from the Cathedral just off the Government Building, the small but gorgeous
Parliament edifice, on one end, and the Rathaus (City Hall) at the other. The
whole walk is strewn with interesting sculptures that will capture your fancy,
including giant ladies’ strappy shoes. The ruler of the country, a young
prince, lives up in the castle on the hill that looks over the entire city but
we didn’t have the time to hike up there. Just outside the tourist area, we
found an excellent restaurant patronized by locals. Their cuisine is an
interesting fine mix of German and French food.
Steibus, Germany
On our
return trip from Vaduz, we missed the bus going to Mondi-Holiday and got
stranded at the bus station for an hour, stressed and hungry. A friendly German
couple read every German poster to find us alternative routes, to no avail. The
following day we took the bus to Steibis, a smaller town up another hill across
from downtown Oberstaufen. We were told that there was quite a popular ski
hotel, Hotel Ludwig, with unique and artsy windows.
Just behind
the hotel is a Wonmobile (RV) campground. And that’s where we found, at a condominium
building across the street, the same helpful couple we met at the bus depot. It
turned out that Dieter and Inge owned a unit there. Equally surprised by the happenstance,
they invited us in for drinks and pretzels. During the merriment that ensued,
despite my husband’s broken German, Dieter’s broken English, and the ladies’
inability to participate, they extended to us an invitation to see their other
resort home in Uberlingen, Germany.
Uberlingen, Germany
The next day
was our last in the country and we had planned on packing and going to the
Wellness Center again. Instead, we decided to accept the couple’s invitation and took a two-hour train ride to
Uberlingen. The city is on the northern shore of Lake Constance otherwise known
locally as Bodensee (see headline photo). With a population of 22,000, the city
is the second largest, after Friedrichshafen, in the Bodensee district. The
lake is huge and the city is a resort town that has attracted many retirees and
tourists. In fact, when we were there, preparations were on the way for the
2020 Garden Show.
Dieter and
Inge treated us to a hearty brunch of German sausages, liverwurst, cheeses, and
bread at their lovely maisonette’s open deck overlooking the lake. Then they
walked us through the City Garden, past the hot springs, and up to the Gazebo
where we had a great view of the city and the lake. We continued walking to see
the oldest section of town, including parts of the Wall that protected the city
when the Swedish invaded. Much of the city was spared because of treaties
previously signed.
Then Dieter took
one of his two Jaguars and drove us up a hill to the beautiful Basilica of the
Fourteen Holy Helpers situated among the vineyards. And that was not the end of
it. He also drove us up another hill to the Meersburg Castle, the oldest
inhabited fortress in Germany whose construction started in pre-medieval times,
630 AD. From both these vantage points there are even more beautiful views of
Bodensee, the grand lake.
We belatedly
found out that Zurich was less than three hours from Oberstaufen, Munich
two hours, and even the magical Neuschwanstein Castle, less than an hour. In
fact, Innsbruck, Austria, our base for the previous week, was only two and a
half hours away. If we had made Oberstaufen our base for two weeks, we
could have made a total of eight exciting day trips, with alternating days of
cooking, rest, and spa, from this part of Bavarian Germany.
There are
many treasures one can find in places that are truly off the beaten path like
the ones we discovered from our German base. And, if you are extremely lucky,
sometimes you will even meet generous and helpful people with whom language
barriers cannot pose even the tiniest hindrance to a great friendship. That is why we say we are extremely
lucky in our travels.
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