World Germany Bayern Füssen

Greg and Laurie's Europe 2007

Day 06 - July 16 - Neuschwanstein and Hochschweingau Castles Jul 16, 2007

Day 6 - July 16 (Monday) The castle, as you enter Disneyland in Anaheim, was modeled after Neuschwanstein Castle in the Bavarian Alps south of Munich. That's where we went today. It's about a two hour drive through the Bavarian countryside from Munich. What beauty! You can only imagine how it could only be enhanced with snow on the Alps during the winter. We had early reservations for our guided tours through Neuschwanstein, also known as "crazy" King Ludwig II's castle and the castle he built for his parents, Hohenschwangau on another mountain a couple kilometers away. (We got the reservations online at their website. If we didn't, we would have had to wait in a long line when we got there. As it was, we simply walked to the front of the line and got in.) We saw the tour for Hohenschwangau first. You could either take a bus ride, carriage ride or walk up to the castle. (Bus ride and carriage ride costing extra and not guaranteeing arrival at the time of your reservation!) Since we had plenty of time and needed to walk off some of the heavy Bavarian food we've been eating, we opted to take the 20 minute hike up hill. We still had about a half hour left before the tour started so we walked around the grounds and took pictures. After this tour we had another hour to get to Neuschwanstein, so we walked there also. Most people opted to walk to the castles, but because of the heat some opted for the air conditioned bus or even the horse drawn carriage. Both castles were beautiful. Unlike other European castles we've seen these two had many rooms, but they were comparatively smaller than others. Everything though seemed to be either made of gold or at least gold plated. Ludwig spent the royal family's total wealth on these castles plus borrowed tons of money from outside interests. Unfortunately, he died under still mysterious circumstances before Neuschwanstein was even half completed. Because he did not leave a will to his heirs, the Bavarian state took over the ownership of Neuschwanstein, although the royal family still owns Hohenschwangau. After the tours it was noon, so we ate at a nice, shady café on the trail down. Bratwurst and Sauerkraut were the lunch for the day. We walked down to our car and saw that the parking lots were packed and we were glad we made our reservations for the earlier, and cooler (temperature-wise) tours. We took a different route back to Munich and saw more of the beautiful countryside. Tomorrow, our last day in the Munich area, we will go to the large lake south of the city called Starnberger See too see how the Bavarian's relax. This is actually the place where Ludwig II's body was found under those mysterious circumstances. We're not going to ponder that though, we just plan to relax near the water under a tree and bring a nice picnic lunch and contemplate our drive to Prague tomorrow.

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