Blogs from Neuschwanstein, Bavaria, Germany, Europe

We woke up bright and early to begin our castle tours, starting with Hohenschwangau which was where King Ludwig II grew up and watched the construction of his new home, Neuschwanstein. Hohenschwangau was really neat, lots of great murals/paintings. Next was Neuschwanstein, which is the castle that Disney’s Sleeping Beauty’s castle is modeled after. King Ludwig II unfortunately only lived in the castle for 172 days. He was arrested in the castle, and declared “unfit to rule” (insane) and 1 day later was found dead next to a lake outside of Munich. To this day the circumstances of his death remain a mystery. The interior was only 30% completed, and construction stopped immediately upon his death. Within 6 weeks, people were already paying to tour it. Our Rick Steve’s book made this tour seem lackluster in ... read more

Here are the pictures from the road trip through Germany, to Austria, to Lichtenstein, to Switzerland. The participants were me, John, Matt (he will be a 3L in night school, he was also one of the program directors), and Tillman (a native German, he knows Matt from the time he spent in Pittsburgh. Tillman lived in Pgh for 13 years). Someone remind me to send these pictures to Matt.... read more

Schloß Neuschwanstein is one of the many castles built by King Ludwig II during his reign. King Ludwig II is known also as the “fairy tale king”, because of this and the many other castles he built. Neuschwanstein was unfortunately never finished. Before the castle could be finished Ludwig was forced to abdicate by the members of government, because he was so deep in debt from building so many castles. The very next morning after arriving in Munich, he was found drowned in the Starnbergersee (where I went last weekend!). The circumstances of his death are still a mystery. Neuschwanstein is only one kilometer away from another castle called Schloß Hohenschwangau, which we were also able to see. Neuschwanstein is the castle that Walt Disney modeled the castle in Sleeping Beauty and the Disneyland castle after. ... read more

When we finished the first tour we followed by the program and we went towards second castle, much more famous - Neuschwanstein Castle. German: Schloβ Neuschwanstein - I can translate this as New Swan Stone castle or something like that. because We had any spare time we walked a bit and we spent most of that time in shop with rubbish stuff for tourists (this is my opinion someone might has an opposite one). Ania purchased someting, I ignored these stuff as usual because I have no enought room to keep this kind of souvenirs from all my trips in home :P Still was raining, but we didn't take that as obstruction and we went towards Neuschwanstein. We weren't alone, no definitely no - crowd of tourists followed in the two opposite directions - towards and ... read more

While we were planning our ski vacation in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, we knew that we just have to see the famous Neuschwanstein, or Ludwig's castle. So we took a day, not a very sunny day, to go there. What we didn't know is that if it snowed the previous day, like it did, we couldn't take the bus up to the castle but walk (quite steep) uphill for half an hour! Apart from this exercise, we enjoyed sightseeing, even went to see the other castle, Ludwig's parents castle - Hohenschwangau, just below Neuschwanstein.... read more