Füssen

Füssen on the Lech is the highest town in Bavaria and forms the end of the Romantic Road. The picturesque old town with the High Castle and St. Mang Abbey, as well as the proximity to the royal castles Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau, make it one of the most visited places in the Allgäu.

Highlights

• Picturesque old town with the High Castle
• St. Mang Abbey on the Lech
• End of the Romantic Road
• Gateway to Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau

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Background & History

Füssen lies at the southernmost point of the famous Romantic Road, there where the Lech emerges from the mountains into the Allgäu foreland and rushes past the town. The place was already of significance in Roman times, for here ran the Via Claudia Augusta, the important road that connected northern Italy with Augsburg. In the Middle Ages Füssen came to the bishops of Augsburg, who made it their summer residence, and to this day the High Castle with its trompe-l’oeil painting and the Benedictine monastery of St. Mang shape the picture of the old town.

A special tradition is lute and violin making: for centuries Füssen was among the cradles of this craft in Europe, and in the town museum artful instruments recall this heyday. After the Thirty Years’ War and a devastating fire, the town experienced an upswing again only when the Bavarian kings discovered the region for themselves. Within sight rise today the castles of Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau, those fairy-tale buildings of the Bavarian kings, the best-known of whom, Ludwig II, spent his childhood here and later had his most famous castle built. These buildings gave the whole area its romantic reputation and draw visitors from all over the world. Embedded between the lakes of the alpine foreland and the first peaks of the Allgäu and Ammergau Alps, Füssen thus forms the gateway to a landscape in which history, royal romance and mountain scenery come together in the closest space.