Neuschwanstein Castle. It was a placed I had dreamed of going for years- ever since I found out that it is the model for the "Disney Castle."
Of course for nearly the entire time I dreamt of it, the only things I knew about Schloss Neuschwanstein were that 1) it's situated on a mountain, 2) the nearest town is Fuessen, Bayern, nearly on the border of Austria, 3) "Mad" Ludwig built the castle and never finished it.
It wasn't until May when Anthony and Jenny took a trip there (they went at the end of our Austria trip) that I found out from them that there are actually 2 castles in the area and a decent sized museum of the Bavarian Monarchs (Museum der Bayerischen Koenigen), and that they are all situated in the tiny town called Hohenschwangau. Additionally, I was informed that we would have to walk either 30 minutes up to the castle, or take the bus and walk about 10, and that you can only buy tickets at the designated ticket shop (which is always busy) in the town at the base of the mountain, before you walk up to the castle (probably the most helpful information we had for the trip).
On Thursday morning, we hit the road at about 9:30am, and made it to Fuessen around noon. The drive was nearly all Autobahn, with beautiful mountain views. At one point we were playing a game similar to cloud watching but instead trying to find shapes in the mountains. :D
I also feel the need to mention that in the no speed limit zones, I got the little VW Golf up to 180 km/hr. That's about double the normal highway limits in the US. But, not to worry, parents, Tyler made me slow down after a few kilometers and said that he thought even 160 was too fast.
Once we got to Fuessen, we were supposed to turn off the main highway, and onto the road that would take us to Hohenschwangau, but somehow we accidentally missed it (more than once) and at one point we ended up crossing the border to Austria on a little windy mountain lake road. At first neither of us even realized it, until I saw a sign that said "tirol" and a certain # of km ahead. We figured out that we were probably going the wrong direction, but it wasn't until we turned around and headed back towards Fuessen that we noticed the sign basically saying "You are leaving Oesterreich, Welcome to Deutschland"
Tyler: Remember that time we accidentally went to Austria?
Yep, so that happened.
Aber, endlich sind wir in Hohenschwangau angekommen. Es war noch zu frueh ins Hotel zu anreisen, also wir mussten die Auto im Parkplatz parken (kostet 5 Euro, aber wir hatten keinen anderen Option). Egal, die erste Tat war Karte zu kaufen!
We went to the ticket center and, as expected had to wait in a 20 minute line. Their ticket system is also pretty dumb. You can buy a combi ticket for Schloss Neuschwanstein + Schloss Hohenschwangau, or Schloss Hohenschwangau + Museum, Or all 3, BUT you can't buy a combi ticket for Neuschwanstein + Museum. AND, you can only use the tickets for the day you buy them, AND the museum tickets are for a SPECIFIC tour time. If you miss the time, you are SOL. AND the tickets aren't cheap either! Neuschwanstein was 13 per person for a 35 minute tour.
But in anycase, we waited patiently, and discovered that the only next available tour time was 2:40pm, which meant we had to be at the castle in the courtyard at 2:40pm. It was only about 12:30pm at this point.
So, we decided to get lunch and then have a little walk around the designated view points around the outside of the castle.
Somehow lunch took longer than we expected, and it was just before 2:00 before we arrived at the bus stop. Let me now take a minute to express my anger at the way this place is run:
- No one at the ticket center said you have to pay for the bus
- No one explained that the line for the bus was absolutely ridiculous, like getting on a Disney ride, seriously people.
- No one mentioned how often the buses arrive.
= we walked to the bus station, I saw the line of people, and realized we would have to wait for probably the 4th bus, we found out that buses ran every 10 to 15 minutes, and it cost 1,80 per person.
I was Mad. and Scared we were going to miss our tour.
But, being the young, fit (laugh here) people that we are, I turned to Tyler and said "I'm really sorry, but I think our only option is to walk, or I really don't think we will make it in time." Tyler looked at his watch and said "It's a 40 minute walk, we have 43 minutes. If we're going to go, we better go now."
So we did. Screw non-free tourist transportation!
However, it was possibly the worst walk we've ever been on together. I made a really dumb mistake in that I forgot to fill up my water bottle before leaving the lunch restaurant and so we had only a mouthful of water for what was considered a 40 minute walk, all up hill. Oh and by the way, it was roughly 95 degrees outside and sunny- the worst kind of weather for hiking.
We ended up being extremely lucky in the sense that whoever designed the map must have followed a person on crutches, or a senior group with a stop watch to estimate 40 minutes, because after 11 minutes, we made it to the drop off point for the horse and carriage, and about 5 after that we were at the top. With about 20 minutes to spare, we were able to cool off, and get some awesome views of the town below, and the valley next to the castle.
The tour itself was a lot smaller than we had expected, but spectacular. There are only about 5 rooms that are shown on the tour, but everywhere you look in the castle, you see beautiful paintings and painted door trips and wall patterns- I was drooling over them. I was tempted to buy an 11 Euro book about the castle just so I could have pictures of the interior walls. (you can't take pictures on the tour) But I settled on post cards instead.
Many of the murals were scenes from the Niebelungenlied, but there were others from Lohengrin as well ( Wagner worked on both of them, and Ludwig loved Wagner- even saved him from bankruptcy). The borders and wallpapers had celtic looking knot themes to them, in gold, red, navy blue and forest green colors. Just magnificent!
The throne room (the throne was never finished, so to this day there isn't even a throne in the room) has over 2,000,000 tiles making a giant floor mosaic representing all the animals on earth or something like that.
Oh yah, the tour guide, for being a professional tour guide of tours in English, was extremely difficult to understand. I speak better German than she does English. So for most of the time, I didn't really pay attention to what she was saying.
Our plan had been to visit the castle, and then go swimming in the Alpsee Lake that is right next to the Museum, however it would be just our luck that as we were exiting the castle (through an awesome tunnel that goes from the kitchen to the side of the main courtyard- how cool is that?) we could see a storm over the mountains in the distance, and that as we were walking around the castle outside, we started getting rained on.
It passed by fairly quickly, and we were able to get a couple more good photos with the castle,
panorama fail- photo bombed by super tourists!
but by the time we made it down to the village, had checked in to the hotel, and changed into swimming clothes, the air temperature was down to about 75. It would have been perfect if the whole day had been like that! But, in any case, I was determined to see the lake, which I had heard is beautiful and very clear.
My goodness, was it! I haven never seen such a body of water! It was remarkable, the water was crystal clear, better than a pool.
Despite the fact that the water was in the lower to mid 60s, I HAD to go swimming in that lake, and so we did. Not for long, and we definitely looked like wimps next to 3 70ish year old people who basically walked right in, splash, splash, swam about 100 feet out, and then back again like it was no big deal. CHAMPS!
In the evening, we ate dinner at the Hotel restaurant, which turned out to be the best decision we made all day. The food was incredible. I don't even remember what I got- a goulash I think, maybe?- but I do remember that Tyler got Schnitzel, and for the first time maybe ever, we shared our entrees. [that never happens because Tyler likes steak and I like veggies] That Restaurant. Idontevensogood.
view from the hotel room. I think the yellow building in the ticket center
Friday
We had to move the car before we could go to the Museum in the morning because the Hotel doesn't let you keep your car in their lot past 10am- even if you are staying there all day, which is crappy because anywhere you move the car to, you have to pay 5 Euro!(- I wrote them a comment about that already when I got an email evaluation for the hotel- which in all other areas was lovely!)
The Museum was pretty cool, but also extremely informative. It started way back in late medieval times, discussing various ruling families in the Bavarian (Bayern) area, with focus on Maximillian II, who build Hohenschwangau, and his son Ludwig II (aka crazy Ludwig who planned Neuschwanstein) .
Just a tidbit: Max. II died mysteriously and suddenly, hohenschwangau was the summer residence for his family, and after he died they lived there permanently. Ludwig II loved the place from childhood, and so soon after he took over reign following his fathers death, he began planning and having Neuschwanstein built (btw Neu = new, schwanstein =swan stone (?), he was obsessed with Swans). There were so many changes in the plans, and the 2nd floor was never even really built, I mean its there, but nothing was finished. But then Ludwig II went kind of crazy, basically he devoted so much time to his castle planning that he neglected everything else. 3 days after his doctor declared him insane, he and his doctor were found dead near the river (I think it was near the river anyway- there's a river that runs next to neuschwanstein, through the valley), their death is still a mystery today.
Our museum adventure only took about an hour and a half, following which, we heading back to Stuttgart.
***
Being Tyler's last night in Germany, I wanted us to have a date night, like we usually do once a month. So we dressed up fancy, and took a stroll down Koenigsstrasse, and sat at the schlossplatz for a little while. Finally the weather had cooled off, and it was quite nice for relaxing outside!
We happened to come across a poor guy and his group of friends on what appeared to be his bachelor party. In Germany, it seems that a Bachelor Party consists of the grooms friends carrying around tons of beer, and making up ridiculous tasks that the groom has to do. This guy had a t shirt which a check list of the tasks on his back. The first one was selling bagels +lachs on the s-bahn (we saw that one on the way to schlossplatz) the 2nd, which we witnessed was, collecting money for playing a cheap plastic flute on the street. We left before he could walk over and beg us for spare change.
We ate dinner at a restaurant that I had passed many times, and that looked like a fancy, traditional German place. I convinced Tyler to try Maultaschen- one of my favorite southern German specialties. But unfortunately, it was cooked a lot differently than the maultaschen I usually eat, and I think we were both less than satisfied. BUT, everything was made up for with our Apfel strudel dessert, with Vanilla Soesse (sauce). I think it was the first I've tried in Germany, and it was delicious!
But, what do you know, the week passed by so quickly. The next thing I knew, it was Saturday morning and we were getting in the car to go to the airport.
