On our third day we rose early again and made our way over to the train station to make the 2 and a half hour ride from Munich to Fussen. We found some good seats on the train and settled in for the trip. We'd brought along some coffee, and packed our standard German breakfast for the ride. We even met a nice young couple to talk to, she was doing an internship at the Hofbrau (Jealous!!!!).
We were on our way to see to of Germany's most famous castles, Schloss Neuschwanstein and Schloss Hohenschwangau. We were working from the Lonely Planet Bavaria and the Black Forest Guide, and it walks you through the process pretty well. Get off the train, catch the bus to Schwangau, walk to the ticket booth buy your tickets to both castles, and enjoy. The tickets you buy are for a specific time, so we got ourselves a little cushion and stopped in for a little lunch at the Hotel Mueller nearby .
We then marched up the hill to Hohenschangau and took some pictures, and then went in for our tour. Unfortunately they don't allow pictures inside, because the furnishings and decorations are as fancy as you might expect of monarchal spending gone wild. Especially impressive are the wedding gifts given to the castle's inhabitants, they are truly the answer to what do you give the couple who has everything. After the first tour, we wandered down and got in line for the horse drawn carriage ride to Neuschwanstein. We were afraid the timing would be a little tight, but the carriage ride only takes about to minutes, and it is a long way up hill for tired tourists. The best Karmic retribution of the day came when we watched people who were in line behind us practically run us over running up to the front seat of the carriage so they could sit in what they thought were the best seats, and they probably were nice seats, until the horses took a little bathroom break about half way through the journey. The finished parts of Neuchwanstein are absolutely amazing (it was never completed due to Ludwig's mysterious death during construction), and our tour group (70 strong) was big enough that lots of people were snapping pictures while the guide wasn't looking but I chose to take the rule abiding position and just enjoy the sights for myself.
After the tour we had a drink at the cafe and sat down to watch the little movie about the life of Ludwig II. Unfortunately for us the power went out right when it was getting good, and it was closing time so we'll just be left to wonder. By the time we were done, the carriages had stopped running so we took the walk downhill on our own. 
That did give us time to shoot some pictures on the way down. We then made our way back to the bus stop where we had to wait for what seemed like forever on a night that was getting to be quite cold.We grabbed a bite to eat in Fussen at a restaurant not really worth mentioning and then made the train ride all the way back to Munich, there was some heavy napping along the way, and when we arrived back in munich we decided to try one of the many Kebab shops nearby. The food there was tasty, and just enough to fill us up for sleepy time. After this day we really could live happily ever after.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment