Fussen over Nothin'
Trip Start
Apr 12, 2008
1
9
54
Trip End
Jun 18, 2008
Munich,
Bavaria,
Germany
Monday, April 21, 2008
- Woke up heaps early at 6:30am... especially after staying up till 1am. Caught a tram, then a S train to the Haupbahnhof (the central hub for local and regional trains) to catch another train to Fussen. Had a bit of trouble buying the ticket to Fussen, especially when 2 drunk locals tried to help by taking turns going "Fussen! Fussen! Fussen!"
- Got the right train eventually, even survived the change of train half way and the bus and finally got to Fussen, the location of Neuschwanstein and Hogenswangau castles.
- These castles look awesome and up close are gigantic from the outside... took plenty of photos..
Waiting for the Fussen Train
- Had a 30 minute tour of both castles. The castles have giant rooms inside, immaculately furnished and decorated very nicely. BUT... there aren't really that many rooms inside... well not that the tour covered anyways. All the main rooms were covered such as the Kings room and Queens room, throne room.- Was around 4pm by the time we were finished with the castles, so we did the reverse travel of this morning and went back to Munich and Jing's... it was a long day of travel and we were very happy to call it a night.
<Lang's sphill>
We went to bed last night at around 1am, only to be woken again by the alarm at 6.30am. We had planned on doing a day trip out to the Castles, namely Neuschwanstein and Hogenswangau, which were the most famous ones in the region.
The plan was to catch the 7.51am train from Munich to Fussen and then take the bus to the castles.... Well, we had a few problems trying to work out the correct pass to buy despite Jing explaining it to us before we left, but we did manage to make the train in the end as it was delayed by 15 minutes
Brian, Dog Dog and Lang
.Anyway, we got on the delayed train and headed towards Buchloe, where we had to change trains to Fussen, which was relatively easy. However, when we caught the bus to the castles, Brian got really pissed off by an old guy with a backpack on as the driver asked everyone to move towards the back, but the guy just stood there blocking the whole aisle, ignoring everyone.
We made our way quickly to the ticket line once we arrived and purchased the Royal Tickets, which covered the tour to both castles.
As we had a little time before the first tour started, we each got ourselves a bratwurst semmel each, which was nice as we were both starving.
The first tour covered Mad King Ludwig's boyhood home - Hogenswangau, and how he romanticised the whole fairytale castle that was to become his pet project before he died unexpectedly at age 40
Neuschwanstein Castle
.The tour only lasted about half an hour, so we had another hour and a half to make it to the top of the hill on the other side.. Opting for the easy way out, we decided to pay the 1.80 Euro for the ride up to Mary's Bridge. Mind you, we still had to hike it a bit just to get there!
The view on the bridge was fantastic and to think that it has been there for over a century, is a marvel in itself. So we took way too many photos up there again, before making our way to Neuschwanstein Castle.
Another short wait eventually lead us to the start of the tour where we had to climb over 100 steps to the first level. And another 200 or so to get to the 2nd level later on..
The castle was never finished - work on it stopped as soon as King Ludwig died, and just 6 weeks after, it was open to the Public.. Well, the 20 or so rooms, that is..
When the tour finished we walked back down to the bus stop and caught the bus back to Fussen. By this time, it was already 4.30pm, and we were dead tired. So we spent the 2hr train ride back to Munich asleep half of the time.
Dinner ended up being Japanese take away for us that night as we couldn't be bothered heading out again to find a proper German place.
