On our way to Amsterdam we stopped for a few hours in the town of Ulm. We’d heard about its amazing Gothic cathedral that was open to people to climb to the top. The cathedral is the 2nd largest in Germany and there are 768 steps to get to the top. We were there for about four hours, and found it to be a lovely little town.
After seeing the castles in Fussen, we decided to move on to someplace a little bit off the beaten track. We’d heard a lot about how much fun Prague was, so we pointed the van northeast and started out. It took about 8 hours of driving to get there, and we were actually disappointed that they wouldn’t stamp our passports at the border. Prague was an interesting city…lots of beautiful architecture, and friendly people. We spent a couple of days wandering around the streets, and partying in the bars. We found one bar in particular that we fell in love with…lots of backpackers on tour, situated in a dark concrete basement with cool statues on the walls.  It was here that we tried absinthe for the first time. It did the job of any alcohol, but I couldn’t detect any other properties. I’m assuming that it wasn’t the real thing, or if it was that we were too tipsy to notice.
Before we headed to Prague, we decided to go south to Fussen to see the trio of Ludwig II’s castles. Fussen was a plesant little town, that very much catered to tourists. Being typical tourists, we felt right at home! We toured all three of the castles in the area, and spent the night in a lovely little hostel before heading off to the Czech Republic the next day.
