We did not begin our day by pouring cream on our cereals – great success. Today we were headed to Neuschwanstein Castle in Fussen, south of Munich and on the border between Austria and Germany. It’s just over two hours via train from Munich central station. After a few days in Munich, we are finally the bosses of the train ticket machines. We hopped on our train with great success and headed out to the foothills of the alps. We saw a lotta farms and a lotta cows and a lotta tourists.
When you arrive in Fussen, you change to a bus to get to the town of Hohenschwangau, which means something about swans. There, Ludwig II built the castle Neuschwanstein. It greets you as you get off your tourist-laden bus. Naturally, you must stop to take a picture immediately, sometimes from the middle of the road, depending on how much you wish to die. As you do.
Neuschwanstein means “New Swan Stone” and was used by Disney as a model for their sleeping beauty castle. It was built by Ludwig II in the late 1800s. He spent his childhood in the nearby Hohenschwangau castle and had always wanted to build a fairy-tale/middle-ages castle in the region. He was introverted, creative, and beloved by the people of Bavaria, though he didn’t really like ruling that much. There were efforts to depose him since he spent millions and millions on his construction projects, and he died under suspicious circumstances in shallow water as he was trying to escape.
After he died, the state of Bavaria started letting people in to see his castles for a nominal fee to pay back the insurmountable debt he had run up. If you want to go inside today, you need to plan a bit as the tourist hordes descend upon the castle on the daily. We were happy just walking up the hill on the outside. I mean, as happy as one can be hiking up switchbacks for like 20 minutes. In an extremely German fashion, small children hiked up behind us, singing songs loudly. The cold mountain air started feeling good instead of freezing. Horses and the elderly passed us.
Whatevs, we lived.
You can also walk up a little ways behind the castle for a stunning view of the surrounding area.
And you can look back for a pretty cool view of the castle itself!
After Neuschwanstein, we trudged down the hillside to view the castle and courtyard of Hohenschwangu, which is much more castle-y and functional, and yet still beautiful. Bonus: no death hike required to get to this one! This one was built by Ludwig II’s father.
It was nearing linner time, so we headed back to the adorable town of Fussen to get some German eats. We stumbled into a medieval-themed gasthaus which featured our server dressed in a medieval tunic, medieval weaponry, and themed menu (naturally!). It was a bit over-the-top theme-wise but turned out to be pretty tasty, unlike how those places usually are. Our drinks came in big ol’ mugs (except for Ashlee’s mead, which came in a drinking horn, because duh) and all the soup came in a crunchy bread bowl. Delicious!
Fussen is also extremely cutesy in an Alpine touristy way.
Our train ride back had us sitting near European train bro who had apparently recently met up with a pair of ladies (Spanish maybe?). The ride started with him explaining the phrase “That’s what she said” to them in English, and was followed with two hours of friend A (who looked like Hermione) staring intently out a pitch-black window trying very hard not to be present and friend B giggling and talking to train bro. Train bro would like you to know that he only sleeps two hours a night on his vacation. When he got up, I saw he had a chin strap. Of course.
Tomorrow, it’s an early start to the airport and then off to Thessaloniki!