Technically, we were in Bavaria when we were in Munich. But it felt more like Bavaria when we could see castles in the Bavarian Alps. What can I say? I’m an idiot American tourist.
Today our destination was Neuschwanstein Castle. I had never heard of it (idiot American tourist, remember) but Lisa knew it was the inspiration for the Cinderella Castle at Disney, so it was on her list. There was much angst when we got to the train station this morning, having to do with our luggage. We had checked out of the hotel that morning, so we had all our stuff with us. Rick Steves advises you to travel light, and we had, but even so, we had a good amount of stuff. We were not going back to Munich that night; we were headed to Salzburg, so we had to take it with us. Anyway, to get to the castle, you first take a train to this little town called Füssen, then you take the bus to the castle. Which is really two castles: Hohenschwangou, which looks nothing like the Disney castle, and then Neuschwanstein, which does. It was built by Mad King Ludwig. Mad King Ludwig, Walt Disney. Hmm.So after our angst at the train station and the two-hour train ride to Füssen, we realized that the train station there had nice roomy storage lockers. Luggage problem solved! But with all that and then the bus trip, we actually didn’t have too terrifically much time to spend at the castles. Especially since the tour for each took about an hour, and what with it being nearly December and all, the sun set rather early. You bought the tickets all at once; our tour took us to Hohenschwangou first and we actually ended up with the last scheduled tour for Neuschwanstein.
There are two main things I remember about the castles: 1. There were a lot of steps, especially at Hohenschwangou. There was a group of older tourists ahead of us and one of them had had a knee replacement, and was proceeding accordingly, by which I mean slow, which was fine, but she graciously stepped aside to let us by. 2. You weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the castles. But at the end of the Neuschwanstein tour, there was this little room, kind of like a foyer or something, that was essentially outside, and there was light filtering in so we were in shadow on the wall, so of course we had to make shadow shapes with our hand. We made swans (schwan = swan).
The way the tours worked was that you toured Hohenschwangou first and then you could walk to Neuschwanstein (which they said was about a 45-minute walk) or you could ride one of their buses, or I think if you wanted to pay extra, you could get a carriage to take you. The way that you walked there (or at least one of the ways you walk there) led you over Mary’s Bridge, which has really great castle views, so of course we went that way. We were not stopped by the fact that the path to Mary’s Bridge was closed. It wasn’t technically closed. There was just this big sign blocking the path that said “Danger” in many languages. But it was only dangerous if it was icy and slippery, and there was barely any snow on the ground and it wasn’t that cold, and our trusty Rick Steves guidebook said we could sneak past the barrier, so we did. The path was fine; we passed a few Japanese tourists who had done the same thing, but mostly people stayed away from the danger, I guess. We took lots of pictures on the bridge, so they were doing the last call for our tour by the time we made it to Neuschwanstein. But we made it.
Of the tours themselves, I don’t really remember much. Mad King Ludwig never really got to live in his big castle because he went mad, and he died. There were lots of cool rooms and narrow, winding staircases. I think you could probably google “Neuschwanstein” and find out a lot more than I remember.
After we finished at Neuschwanstein, we walked back down to the town, and then it seems like everyone disappeared. There was a hotel right there, so maybe all the tourists were staying there, or had driven, I don’t know, but suddenly it felt like it was just the two of us wandering around this little town in the Bavarian Alps two hours from Munich. It was less exciting than it sounds, and more unsettling. Eventually we made our way back to the bus stop. There was no one there. We waited, and waited. A couple of other people straggled in and still no bus. Finally, the bus came, and we made it back to the train station, where we collected our luggage and raided the only store still open at that time of night (whatever time of night it was) for high quality European chocolate (Ritter Sport). I think you can get it in some form in the U.S. but I have never again been able to find the Bailey’s Irish Cream-flavored chocolate that I got at that train station. So, so rich. So, so good.
Upon arrival in Salzburg, we checked into our hotel, the Hotel am Dom (lots of stairs and no elevator to our room on one of the upper floors), and had a late dinner of Chinese on a nearby street. I think I’m not making that up.
