May 8 was yet another gorgeous day in Bavaria. Ignoring the fact it was our last day in Europe, we set out to make it a good one. After a train ride to Fussen, we took a bus to the bottom of the castle hill where we bought our tickets for Neuschwanstein. Built by Crazy King Ludwig, Neuschwanstein is the "fairy tale" castle that inspired Walt Disney. Construction stopped with Ludwig's "mysterious" death, so only about 1/3 of the interior was finished. It's still fascinating to go through...and helps set the stage for Ludwig's extravagent lifestyle that was likely his demise.
Just as fabulous as the interior of the castle is the place it rests - Ludwig picked a point high on a hill/cliff, and thus had incredible views! Before we toured the castle, we hiked up to Mary's Bridge - a wooden bridge over the valley (very high over the valley!) above Neuschwanstein that provides beautiful shots of the castle.
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| This is Hohenschwangau - Ludwig's childhood home that we didn't tour. Next time...! |
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| Looking down at waterfalls from Mary's Bridge |
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| Yeah, we were pretty high up there. |
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| Ludwig wisely chose a high point to build Neuschwanstein - coming up that cliff to attack would have been difficult! |
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| Check out how much support had to be built to "hold" the castle up from the ground on the back. Pretty impressive. |
After enjoying the lovely views from Mary's Bridge, we hiked on up a bit further/higher yet...
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| What a view. What a view! |
Then it was about time for our castle tour, so we walked back down to Neuschwanstein and checked it out a bit closer up. No pictures allowed inside (booo!), so all we got were some outside shots. It was hard to capture close up, because the castle is so tall and there isn't much room around it to back up : )
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| View from one of the balconies. I could get used to seeing that every morning. |
After our tour, we elected to walk the long hill back down to the bus stop - one last chance to enjoy a bit of nature before sitting on a plane for a while. And it was such a nice day! We headed back down and had lunch at the bottom, then caught our bus back to Fussen and the train back to Munich.
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| Our tree canopy on the way down. |
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| A late lunch |
Back in Munich, we set out for one last dinner, heading back down to the Marienplatz area. We walked around a bit, getting a final shot of the Glockenspiel while it was light and taking in the street musicians (some of which were incredibly talented and had grand pianos, etc, set up!), before taking up residence at another patio restaurant. I had roast duck, and Bryan had - are you ready - suckling pig and knuckle of pork with a potato dumpling and white cabbage salad. Sound authentic?! How did I not get a picture...?!
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| You can see a little better in this picture where the figurines comes out to perform at 11, 12, and 5. |
Wow - what a fantastic day we had. Southern Germany is clean, friendly, and relaxed, and we couldn't have asked for better weather. Pair that with pretty train rides, a bit of hiking, and a fascinating historic castle tour - well, it was awesome.
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