Castle Day

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Overview:

1. Thanks to Harlan for his funny, although not completely PC comments. We knew we could count on you for some humor Harlan.

2. Is it a holiday in Japan right now? Seriously, they were EVERYWHERE along the Romantic road. They flood Neuschwanstein like they were invading it, and in Rothenburg it was the same. Apparently Japanese people LOVE the romantic medieval knights and castles thing more than Americans. It honestly became comical how many there were.

3. Speaking of Romantic Road...although it is beautiful and lends itself to oogling, there are some places where you should just not make out. Topping the list is the Nazi Museum in Nurenburg. Seriously, the NAZI museum is not the place for that. Apparently genocide is an aphrodisiac in Germany for this particular couple--not cool man.

4. Signs that indicate you have been traveling for a while: you say in all earnest "I just dont have the energy to start a new country, a new language, a new currency, with new kinds of weird tollroads today."

We drove from Munich to the area surrounding Neuschwanstein castle and camped there for 2 days visiting both castles "Mad King Ludwig" lived in. Neuschwanstein castle, for those of you who dont know, is that Sleeping Beauty's castle is modeled after. The other castle is called Hohenschwangau castle, and is where King Ludwig grew up. It was, in Christina's opinion, the more beautiful of the 2 because it was actually used, while sleeping beautys castle had the construction on it stopped because of the sudden death of the king. Matt liked the unfinished one better because it, quote, "had more dragons."

Then we drove across the border into Austria to visit castle ruins outside of Reutte. We hiked 30 mins up hill for one, then thinking that wasn't so bad, decided to see the other one, which was just a "30 min hike." well, it was really about 45 mins and it was STRAIGHT UP HILL. needless to say with all the walking for the day, we definitely got our exercise. In the end, we ended up hiking up 3000 vertical meters. we have some beautiful pictures of the valley though.

The next day we drove up the "romantic road" which is a beautiful drive through Bavaria. We ended up in Rothenburg, which is the best preserved medieval walled city in all of Europe. It was gorgeous--definitely worth a visit. From there, we headed for Prague, with a stop over in Nurenburg to visit the Nazi museum.

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