If there was a better way to go then it would find me...

As of Thursday night when I went to bed I still hadn't decided where to go from Germany. Poland was out because the Wizz Air flight I wanted to take from Warsaw had gone up to over $300. That left either Holland and Belgium via Köln or down to Italy via Austria and Liechtenstein. I mapped out the routes, the ICE train to Köln left at 8:29am and the series of trains I would take to Austria left at 9:41am. I woke up at 9:15am and my decision was made for me. I quickly checked out of the hostel where I was sleeping in a storage room in the basement for free because they had sold out before I had a chance to pay for my third night (since I didn't know if I would sell my match ticket). I ran to the train station and bought another Bavaria ticket for 18 euro that would get me (via 4 different trains) all the way from Würzburg to Lindau (pictured above) near the border with Austria. From there it was another train to Feldkirch and then a Postbus to Liechtenstein. Along the way I started pondering the maps in my European Rail Timetable and I realized that instead of backtracking to Feldkirch and then going down to Italy, I could transit Switzerland in a little over 2 hours and end up in France. That way I can still cross the English Channel on my way to London instead of flying from Pisa, and I can give Northern Italy the full time it deserves at a later date instead of trying to go to 6 cities in 4 days. There are a couple places I want to see in Northern France and they make an adequate replacement for the things I would be missing in Belgium and Holland, and saving the Benelux stuff for later makes it easier to combine with a future trip to Northern Germany. Cool! Why didn't I think of this before?!?