We started the drive around 7:45 a.m. and, sad to say, didn't arrive until 12:15 (with a half an hour stop). We inputted Füssen into the GPS system and chose economy route, as we had every other time. This time though, the GPS lead us through the weirdest back streets and country mountain roads. If I said anything before about the streets in Bad Gastein frightening me, I take it back. This one road we drove on was the scariest road I have ever been on. It was a two-way road, with only room for one car, and barely that at some points, with hairpin curves every 500 m, that had a very, very steep incline and this was up in the top of the Austrian Alps. We drove on this road for 10 km, but it felt like a very long time. At one point, a bus came in the other direction and for it to pass we had to pull over, which was fine, but there wasn't enough room for the bus to get by as the road just wasn't wide enough. Finally, we pulled farther over into the snow and the bus passed by with about 5-10 cm in between us and them.
The drive to Füssen was certainly an experience, after this windy road we continued on another one, but it was wider, and then finally were able to get on a Bundesstrasse (a national road) until Füssen.
Upon arrival, we saw players wearing the Canadian Explorers jackets but didn't want to disturb them. We thought it was the 2001 team (the team Matthias is on) but it ended up being the 2000 team, as the 2001's still hadn't even arrived from the airport. They arrived 5 minutes before their game time, and so, with no warm-up and barely any time to put on their gear, and not having really eaten or slept after all of their travelling, they played their first game. Because of their late arrival, the tournament allowed them to play a short warm-up game that didn't count for anything. At the end of this game, we left to go see the castles 8 minutes away.
The Königsschlösser, King Ludwig's castles, were amazing. It was really cloudy, and snowy, which made them much harder to see, but I got the best pictures I could.
The Neuschwanstein castle: the Disney castles are based on this castle.
The Hohenschwangau castle
After our trip to the castle, we returned to the arena to watch the second half of their first real game in the tournament. Fun fact: in Europe (or Germany at least) the time on the clock counts up rather than down.
The outside of the Füssen arena.
All of the flags of the countries playing in the tournament.
The ceiling of the over 100 year-old arena.
Matthias trying to stretch and warm up after travelling for 26 hours.
The practice game
I can`t imagine how they were able to play hockey being so tired and so hungry, and as a result, they lost both of their games. We also walked around the Füssgaengerzone with two mom`s of two of the other players from Vancouver Island. It was so much fun and it looked so German. We ate at a bakery and the food and drinks were delicious. I also really enjoyed seeing the castles even if it was very cloudy and snowy.
The drive home was very long (it was snowing) but we avoided the crazy roads and finally arrived back at our hotel in Bad Gastein.
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