Driving from Zurich, Switzerland to Fussen, Germany (Castles)

You're right, the hotel's route is very out of the way. The fastest route is about a 3 hour drive: A1 east toward Winterthur & St Gallen to the A14, then north toward Lindau (through the corner of Austria on the east side of Lake Constance)... the A14 becomes the A96 in Germany. Stay on the A96 all the way up to Memingen where you can get on the A7 southeast to Füssen. It's shorter to cut off the A96 & take the B12 toward Kempten, but it's a 2 lane winding road & will take longer than the above route.

Tim, Thanks. Before you posted I had tried to map it out and came up with some pretty unusual routes on the 308 or 310......or the A14/E60/S16 and then the 189/179 heading north into Fussen. I think your route suggestion might be the quickest simply because there are less windy and hilly roads and tunnels.
Eddie

If it's winter time you might want to stick to the autobahns. Those mountain roads through the Alps can be very treacherous when the snow comes.

Wait, am I reading this correctly? Are you flying into Zurich, landing in the evening and then driving immediately to Füssen? If so, I would not recommend that, especially if you have never driven in Europe before. Give yourself at least one night's sleep in Switzerland before you start that drive.

Thanks for all of the responses. I should of given a little bit more detail and I apologize. We are doing a 3 week trip through Europe during July of 2011. We are flying into Zurich and then using the train system(s) the entire trip to go to Bern, Bernese Oberland, Paris, Rome (overnight train), Florence and finally Lake Como. The tricky part is after Lake Como. We are staying the night in Torino, Italy so we can catch the 8:50am train that eventually gets to Chur, Switzerland and covers the Berner Oberland train route....then another train onto Zurich. Now my thoughts are after taking trains for 3 weeks and being on a train all day the same day I was figuring we could rent a car instead to drive to Fussen for the last two nights. This would also allows us to not just see the two major Castles but also drive around a bit and to to things such as the summer luge run and maybe some other less known castles or things. One last thing = I consider myself to be an excellent driver and am not afraid of any driving situation and have driven in Europe through parts of Scandinavia before. With all that said I am completely open to suggestions from anyone who has actually done this route and might of wanted to do the same things. Thanks in advance and I wanted everyone to know that we are so excited about this trip. I can only imagine how nice the Fussen area is and seeing the castles and everything else (we are missing Austria this trip but want to come back maybe another time to see Salzburg, Vienna and maybe even Prague). Regards,
Eddie

I'm confusicated Eddie. Do you mean you are staying in Tirano or Torino? If you are going to Chur on the Bernina Express (a more misnamed train I don't know - but I love everything the RhB does - they are fantastic) Tirano is starting point. You say, "eventually gets to Chur, Switzerland and covers the Berner Oberland train route"
but the RhB is through Graubunden not the Berner Oberland. Or are going actually from Chur to Lauterbrunnen then Zurich, then driving to Bavaria all in one day?

Nigel, Thanks - you are right on both accounts. We will be staying in Tirano, Italy and then taking a morning train from Tirano to St Moritz and then on to Chur and then Zurich. The first two parts of this trip seem to go on the same line that the Bernina Express Train takes. However that does not leave until the afternoon from Tirano so we will take a regular train that leaves at 8:50am. Once again thanks,
Eddie