Where's the Throne?

We made it to the Neuschwanstein castle in time to catch the last English tour of the day. It is a 45 minute walk straight uphill to the castle through the forest from the ticket booth. The place was swarming with tourists which is a detractor for us but we made the best of it. The Cinderella Castle at Disneyland is modeled after this castle and it is truly beautiful from the outside. On the tour I was startled to learn the castle was just built in the 1860s by Ludwig II who was obsessed with Wagner operas. He actually built several castles, and his family was quite mad at him for spending so much money on them. The German people, on the other hand, liked him because he provided so much employment for the local community. Only 21 rooms of the castle are completed (of which we only saw a handful), and each is dedicated to one of the operas. The throne room, although impressive, has no throne! The tour was by far the most touristy thing we've done, packed with busloads of group tours, and is complete with a "tour" through the gift shop! Overall, we would suggest not doing the tour but instead hiking around to the bridge over the ravine above and behind the castle. The view from there is spectacular.

It was on the bridge that J had his first refusal from a fellow tourist to take a photo of us. Usually people are happy enough to oblige, it was very strange to get a flat out "no" without further explanation like "i'm in a hurry..." Neither of the questionable traveler's two American friends offered to help either. It is just common courtesy to us, we've never refused such a request from others.

On the hike back down from the castle, we met an American man and his German wife who live with their two year old in India. We asked them for suggestions on where to stay the night on the the way to our next destination, Innsbruck, Austria. They kindly suggested the town of Oberammergau, Germany.

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