This week has been really busy, so sorry to stay away so long. This is an important post! If you are ever in Germany, do not pass Neuschwanstein! It is one of the three palaces Mad King Ludwig built and and used to bankrupt the state (A second castle of his is on one of the islands in my lake, but I haven't been yet). It's also the Castle Disney had in mind when he designed Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland and the Disney movie logo. That's really not hard to see - Even walking near the castle, I had a bit of deja-vu - there's a magical Disney-like feeling to it.
The Castle is about 2 hours from Munich to a town called Füssen, and then you need to take a bus up to the foot of the mountain. (The castle is built into the side of the mountains). We accidentally exited the bus two stops early, which meant we had a 40 minute walk ahead of us to the ticket counter. (It's such a frequented stop, that when you reserve tickets, they assign you a pick-up time a few hours before your tour, and if you fail to show up for ticket pick up, you need to rebook a whole new tour and get another pick-up time again). This ended up being a gorgeous walk (to all of you currently living in a polar vortex, we've had a week of 13 degree weather!) and we got a great view of the castle and the surrounding villages. There are actually two castles in the area. Hohenschwangau is the name of the village and the smaller castle in the area. It too is gorgeous, but in a very different style. From the ticket counter to the Castle is another 30 minutes uphill by foot. The view at the top is absolutely breathtaking. It's crazy to think that give or take a few roads, the view there of the fields, villages, and lakes is probably the same view that the King looked out on a over a century ago.
The castle itself is incredibly tall and intimidating. But inside it is decorated floor to ceiling in bright colours and cheerful patterns, almost as if for a kid's room. There is a massive throne room and beautiful murals in every room. They all had a lot of significance that I should pass on to you, but the tour was in German (with a strong Bavarian accent) and I can't really remember much about it. Around the castle are fantastic walking paths all through the woods on the mountain, and there is a beautiful bridge nearby where you can take photos of the castle and neighboring lakes and villages. It's a very old, very precarious bridge, and in winter it's actually blocked off. But we noticed that a lot of people were carrying their kids over the gates and going anyway, and we figured if the kids could go, we could try it too. We became very familiar with the warning "Lebensgefahr" (life threatening). The photos were fantastic, and we decided if we could conquer the bridge we could take the scenic route back down the mountain too. It was a great 40 minute hike down an almost entirely ice-covered slop of about 40 degrees. We got a great view of the other castle and the town as the sun started to set and the lights went on. Back in Füssen we grabbed bread, cheese, meat and nachspeisen from a grocery store and ran for our train. Eliz was the one who spoke with the conductor, who heard her French accent and assumed we were all French. Every time he passed us on the train eating our little picnic, he would make polite conversation in really bad French. So accomodating!!
Munich was another adventure as we were half asleep from our train ride, had to help Italian-speaking Silvia figure out the U-bahn that we don't know ourselves, and had to change trains. I am very proud of my new ability to run through the Munich Hauptbahnhof! I have yet to arrive early but also yet to miss a train! :)
The Castle is about 2 hours from Munich to a town called Füssen, and then you need to take a bus up to the foot of the mountain. (The castle is built into the side of the mountains). We accidentally exited the bus two stops early, which meant we had a 40 minute walk ahead of us to the ticket counter. (It's such a frequented stop, that when you reserve tickets, they assign you a pick-up time a few hours before your tour, and if you fail to show up for ticket pick up, you need to rebook a whole new tour and get another pick-up time again). This ended up being a gorgeous walk (to all of you currently living in a polar vortex, we've had a week of 13 degree weather!) and we got a great view of the castle and the surrounding villages. There are actually two castles in the area. Hohenschwangau is the name of the village and the smaller castle in the area. It too is gorgeous, but in a very different style. From the ticket counter to the Castle is another 30 minutes uphill by foot. The view at the top is absolutely breathtaking. It's crazy to think that give or take a few roads, the view there of the fields, villages, and lakes is probably the same view that the King looked out on a over a century ago.
The castle itself is incredibly tall and intimidating. But inside it is decorated floor to ceiling in bright colours and cheerful patterns, almost as if for a kid's room. There is a massive throne room and beautiful murals in every room. They all had a lot of significance that I should pass on to you, but the tour was in German (with a strong Bavarian accent) and I can't really remember much about it. Around the castle are fantastic walking paths all through the woods on the mountain, and there is a beautiful bridge nearby where you can take photos of the castle and neighboring lakes and villages. It's a very old, very precarious bridge, and in winter it's actually blocked off. But we noticed that a lot of people were carrying their kids over the gates and going anyway, and we figured if the kids could go, we could try it too. We became very familiar with the warning "Lebensgefahr" (life threatening). The photos were fantastic, and we decided if we could conquer the bridge we could take the scenic route back down the mountain too. It was a great 40 minute hike down an almost entirely ice-covered slop of about 40 degrees. We got a great view of the other castle and the town as the sun started to set and the lights went on. Back in Füssen we grabbed bread, cheese, meat and nachspeisen from a grocery store and ran for our train. Eliz was the one who spoke with the conductor, who heard her French accent and assumed we were all French. Every time he passed us on the train eating our little picnic, he would make polite conversation in really bad French. So accomodating!!
Munich was another adventure as we were half asleep from our train ride, had to help Italian-speaking Silvia figure out the U-bahn that we don't know ourselves, and had to change trains. I am very proud of my new ability to run through the Munich Hauptbahnhof! I have yet to arrive early but also yet to miss a train! :)