Füssen is a town in Bavaria, in the district of Ostallgäu situated 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the Austrian border. It is located on the Romantic Road and on banks of the Lech river. The River Lech flows into the Forggensee. The Forggensee is a man-made lake which was built to prevent flooding. It is the catchment area for all the melting snow in the spring. After the middle of October the lake is drained ready for the next spring melt.
It had been a settlement in Roman times on the Via Claudia Augusta, a road that leads southwards to northern Italy and northwards to the former regional capital of the Roman province called Raetia, the capital of which was Augusta Vindelicum today’s Augsburg.
The “Hohes Schloss” (High Castle), the former summer residence of the prince bishops of Augsburg and one of Bavaria’s largest and best preserved late Gothic castle complexes, is Füssen’s landmark. Today the castle houses a branch gallery of the Bavarian State Collections of Paintings, which focuses on late Gothic and Renaissance works of art. Below the Hohes Schloss is the Baroque complex of the former Benedictine monastery of St. Mang, whose history goes back to the 9th century. The oldest fresco in the whole of Germany can be found in the crypt of St Mang’s Basilica. It dates back to about the year 980.
Füssen is the highest town in Bavaria (808 m above sea level). The famous castles of Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau are located near the town, about a 5 minute drive.
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