Castle Sightseeing Daytrip

  Fussen, Germany
Sunday, March 16, 2008

Sunday morning, 3/16/08 we awoke and had breakfast at the hotel before going to the Hauptbahnhof for out train to Füssen/ Neuschwanstein Schloss.

Hauptbahnhof

We got to the station really early just to make sure we were there, and inside was a Burger King.

I told you there was a Burger King

I thought that was funny. We boarded the train which took us up through the mountains. Füssen was such an adorable city! We got out at the train stop and took another bus that directly took us to the town of Hohenschwangau, even higher up into the mountains eventually to Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein Schloss. The first castle, Hohenschwangau

Heidi in front of Hohenschwangau

was King Ludwig II's childhood castle, and Neuschwanstein was the fairytale castle he was building for himself. First we had a guided tour of Hohenschwangau,

Geoff at Hohenschwangau

which explained that King Ludwig's family had an affinity for opera, and had many murals painted directly on the walls to depict the story of the Swan Prince. Amazingly, Hohenschwangau had relatively simple décor, with the main ornamentation on the furniture pieces, and the table settings. We were instructed not to take photos inside both castles, but the outside was fair game. Interestingly enough, the family was friends with composer Richard Wagner, and they even had one of his pianos in the queens' quarters. We did walk the distance between the two castles, which took about 30 minutes up hill to get from Hohenschwangau to Neuschwanstein. King Maximilian II (King Ludwig's father), died at a very young age, leaving his two sons and queen. King Ludwig was actually the younger of the two sons, but his older brother apparently was not healthy enough to rule, and thus Ludwig was named king. He was only 17, and as most 17 year olds act, he decided to build his fairy tale castle, not too far from his parent's home. In 1869 the beginning of Neuschwanstein castle was built. It was never completed, and King Ludwig only spent about 6 months in the castle in 1886 before his body (and the body of his doctor) was found floating in a lake. They're not quite sure what happened to him, and soon after the castle was opened for tours, featuring rooms that were completed, including a hall for his throne (the throne was never built) his bedroom, and a cave inspired by Wagner's opera. King Ludwig never married, his sanity and sexuality was questioned, but overall the Bavarians loved King Ludwig II. Walt Disney used this castle as inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland.

Amazing View of Neuschwanstein

If you would like to see inside of this castle, Samantha Brown, on the Travel Channel toured for her television show "Passport to Europe". we love her. On the way down from the castle, we got a snack- fried balls of dough. Not sure what they were called though, because the person at the stand was deaf, and I only know American Sign Language, not German Sign Language. Oh well. We got back on the bus to Füssen and the rain really started (It sprinkled a bit earlier, but we had our handy bumbershoots for that). The ride back to Hauptbahnhof was beautiful and we saw a huge rainbow as the rain stopped. We decided that for dinner we would go back to Marienplatz and ate at Ratskellar München Restaurant. This restaurant was underground, which is traditional of Ratskellars, and we had a great meal! They even had a vegetarian selection, so I chose a schnitzel made from breaded and baked kohlrabi, with a mashed potato peas mixture on the side. It was amazing. I think I will have to start mashing peas into my potatoes at home. It was such a pretty green! I had their house wine, which was a white, but not too sweet. We took the S-Bahn back to the hotel to sleep until morning!