Germany - Day 3

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Waking up today was a bit rough, as you can imagine. But to be honest, I think it was better than we thought it would be.

We rose a bit earlier, as we absolutely had to catch the 9:53am train out of Munich to Fussen, which is very close to the Germany/Austria border. We were going down to see: Neuschwanstein castle! It's basically the castle that Walt Disney modeled his Cinderella castle after. I've seen pictures and it's always been a bucket list item of mine to go and see it in person someday. The weather today was absolutely perfect - sunny and in the low 70s all day long. Couldn't have asked for anything better! The only thing about the day was, it is a royal pain in the arse to get down there & to the castle.

First, it was the train ride from Munich to Fussen (2 hours). Then, it was supposed to be a bus ride from Fussen to Schwangau, where the ticket office is. However, we ended up taking a taxi. The bus was taking forever to arrive and we had to pick up our reserved tickets for the castle by 12:40 or we'd lose them. So we get to the ticket office and - WOW - I'm incredibly glad that I reserved our tickets in advance. We got to go straight through the fast-lane and basically waited a minute or less. The line for buying tickets without pre-reservations was OUTRAGEOUSLY LONG. Score one point for me. 😊 After picking up the tickets, you then had to get some kind of transportation up the side of the mountain to the castle. You could walk 40 minutes uphill (no thanks), take a carriage ride (expensive), or a bus. Ok so, bus it was. But the line for THAT was crazy-long, so we stood in the sun for 20-30 min just waiting and roasting. THENNNNN once you get to the top of the mountain, they drop you off at the entrance to two paths: one leads to the castle itself (about a 10 minute walk) and the other leads to a bridge, which overlooks the castle from a short distance.

All this to say, again, it's a royal pain in the arse to get to Neuschwanstein.

The castle was designed in the late 1800s by King Ludwig. He was suspected to be a bit insane. As the castle was slowly being built, he moved into the first rooms that were finished and lived there for 172 days before he was found dead in a lake somewhere in Bavaria. Very mysterious. But he never was able to see the castle finished. It was eventually, though, and turned into a museum right after his death. We toured the inside and learned a bit, but so few rooms are actually still "original" that it went by very quickly. You also couldn't take pictures of the inside.

The best part, of course, was the view of the castle from the bridge. Just so amazing and breathtaking!!! A bucket list item checked off! It was so gorgeous, especially with the blue sky and perfect weather. Unfortunately we didn't get to stand and gaze at the scene for too long, there were just SO MANY tourists trying to get onto the bridge and take their pictures. It's impossible to take your time in a situation like that. That's the downside of going to touristy sites. There's other damn tourists there. Ha.

All in all, we are glad we got to see the castle and the countryside down in the Alps. But it was a LONG day and the majority of it was spent traveling and/or waiting. We are pooped.

We ate dinner at a nice place around the corner - Randy had weinerschnitzel and fries (yum!) and I had deer meatballs with some kind of mashed potato and a cucumber mash? Sounds so weird but it was very delicious!

We're back at the hotel now and ready to crash for the night. Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy and gross all day, so we're going to sleep in and just kind of wing-it with plans.

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