Old Retired Guy Blog

July 4 - 8, 2010

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Munich (Page 6 of 6)

With plenty of churches, museums, parks, and beer gardens checked off of our must-see-in-Munich list, we decided to take a day trip out of town to see some castles.  We'd seen quite a few already but thought it would be fun to see the ones that you almost always see on the travel posters.  So, we hopped on the train and took a ride to Füssen where we could see the famous Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles.  According to Wikipedia (and they don't lie) Walt Disney based his Sleeping Beauty Castle on Neuschwanstein.

As the train headed south toward the Alps the blue sky began to turn gray.  By the time we disembarked in Füssen the threat of rain had turned into the real thing.  When I visited Neuschwanstein in 1966 it was raining so hard that I decided not to walk up the mountain trail to see it.  Having been here twice, I've concluded that it either rains here every 44 years or it rains here all of the time.  Now, however, there's a shuttle bus you can take so that you don't have to walk up.  That seemed like a very good (and dry) option.

By the time we finally caught the bus and rode it up the rain had stopped (at least temporarily).  The shuttle bus actually lets people off above the castle near a place called the Marian Brücke (Marian Bridge) that crosses a deep narrow gorge near the castle.  From the bridge you can get some great views of the castle and, if you're brave enough to look down, some great views of the river and waterfall in the gorge below.

We hiked down to Neuschwanstein to get an up-close-and-personal look.  Hundreds of people were waiting for their designated times to enter and tour the castle.  If they missed their time they would be SOL.  We had decided before we left Munich that we weren't going to try to fight the crowds and wait in the lines to see the inside.  Only a small part of the castle is finished and we'd already seen plenty of magnificent things in the Residenz.  The mountain scenery, castle grounds, and the building itself were worth the trip even without getting inside.

I shouldn't forget to mention Hohenschwangau.  This is the castle that crazy King Ludwig II lived in while watching the construction of Neuschwanstein.  From Hohenschwangau there are some very nice views of Neuschwanstein on the nearby mountainside.  I think that Hohenschwangau is more colorful and ornate than Neuschwanstein. 

The rain returned as we waited for the bus to take us back to the train station for our trip back to Munich.

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Read Part 6 of the Anderson's European Vacation