The Invisible Neighbour

On the second (I think) "Pandemic Christmas" my mum gifted us one of those hotel voucher packages where you can pick one among a selection of hotels. It was valid until the end of this year, which seemed a really long time in the future and so we first prioritised other vacation projects that had got cancelled or postponed because of lockdown restrictions. About a year ago I reminded Highflyer to choose a time and hotel in order for the voucher not to expire. Once we had settled for one (in Czechia) it was no longer available so we decided to change the strategy and decide on a date and then check on the booking platform which hotels were available then. We could choose among hotels in Austria, Italy, Germany, Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary and Poland. We didn't want to spend more than 4 hours max in the car and the locations in Austria didn't look too interesting. The Czech Republic was our favourite, but the really interesting places like Carlsbad where too far away for a weekend and the others in rather boring parts of the country and or with really bad reviews as were the Slovak ones. Highflyer didn't want to go to Hungary on account if its political climate so that was ruled out. Poland meant two hotels in Krakow which we both wouldn't have minded revisiting, but which would have required flying, i.e. considerable travel time, not mentioning the extra cost, and the offer for Italy consisted of 2 places in South Tyrol (where I've always wanted to go) that were a really long drive from the east of Austria. For some reason, Germany never really seemed an option until we had run out of other ideas and I started looking into the hotels there. We ended up selecting one in Bad Füssing, just behind the Austrian border and a mere 3-hour-drive away from where we live. From there we made a day trip to nearby Passau (see above) which I'd always wanted to visit and it ended up being really nice. I was really happy that we picked that particular hotel, but my husband's initial reaction was also "Germany?" For some reason, deliberately visiting Germany (unless it's a business trip or you have relatives there) beyond cities like Berlin, Munich or Hamburg is not really something that would occur to your average Austrian. I guess we work under the arrogant assumption that it is just like a less colourful, humour-less version of our own little country. I remember when at the Firm our DACH ski trip was zo Germany as well, many of us Austrians found it a strange idea. Eventually it turned out to be one of the best ski days I ever had (Zugspitze in glorious sunshine and perfect snow) and we all ate our words....even though I still remember getting krapfen with cherry (!) jam...the sacrilege. Even though this was years ago and I should know better, our neighbour to the North doesn't seem to be in my relevant set of vacation destinations.