Walking in the prismatic amazement that is the woods and mountains in fall. Feeling the chilly wind on your cheeks while the sun is still warm. The sound of leaves crackling under your soles. Fall is a great moment of the year to visit some places that are too crowded during the summer and to just walk around in general. Germany is no exception. With its beautiful trees and landscape, it is the perfect Autumn day right there. This is why that day, we decided to go for a day trip to Hohenschwangau village, about 2h of the train from München.

Doing the touristy things is always a bit unnerving. You know for a fact you will be in a crowd of people and won’t get to truly enjoy the place you are at because all these people will strip the place of its essence.

This is what happens when you want to go see the Neuschwanstein castle. It is located in a terribly small and cute village by the name of Hohenschwangau. So at first, you imagine yourself taking the train a few hours, then a small hike from a village to another and bam!; beautiful Sleeping Beauty Romanesque palace in the mountains.

Wrong.

The train ride involves getting shoved around by people who do not share the same culture of “wait in line, we’ll all get in anyways”, and running for the bus right when you get off in order to maybe catch a glimpse of the castle. Which is beautiful, of course. But still. What about the lonely paths in the woods and theses creeks nobody goes to?

That’s where being curious plays out. Most just follow the crowd of the directions and head straight for this;

However, a short detour and looking around for odd paths in the woods really is worth it sometimes, even in places with thousands of angry Nikon armed tourists. And in reality, it may look nice, but what it really feels like is this;

A bit of hiking using smaller less populated trails brings me and my friends to discover some more niche, remote locations;

And just before ascending to Neuschwanstein, coming back from Schloß Hohenschwangau, a small castle, we decided to walk along the beautiful Alpsee. When I noticed a small path leading down, towards the waterscape itself. A small clearing and an old abandoned boathouse, slowly drowning, with orange leaves floating about made the scene. A gorgeous place to just breathe out.

More beautiful than the castles themselves, this place, completely untouched, was left there, less than 300m from the 25 tour buses and 5 gift shops around. It was dead, hiding behind the trees. Sometimes it’s just about looking for a bit of solace behind the treeline and you find these places. Perfect for a picnic, or to sit down and enjoy.

And above all, perfect to remember the most colourful season of the year, in a beautiful country, and forget about the rest of the world for a few minutes. . .