Königsschlösser 10.6.11

The title Königsschlösser would be one of the biggest tourist traps in Bavaria, the King's Castles. We checked out of the B&B and headed through the mountains to the ultra touristy area of Schwangau and the Hohenschwangau & Neuschwanstein Castles. This is definite fairy-tale land. It's hard to believe sometimes that the places we've seen were once inhabited, this town just looked so make believe! We were ushered through the ticket office like cattle and it wasn't even that busy, but it was beautiful weather which brings out many people in the off season times. We climbed up to Hohenschwangau (High Swan) --->

and waited for our tour time to flash so we browsed the shop and bought a book on the crazy King Ludwig II.  It's nice to go through Hohenschwangau 1st because it gives more history plus the tours are a bit more personal with a real person and smaller groups.  It was built in the 12th century but ruined by Napoleon and Ludwig's father, King Maximilian II rebuilt it in 1830, so this is where Ludwig lived as a boy with his younger brother Otto (who was also mentally insane) in the side house with their nanny.  The family used it as a hunting/summer place until 1912.  It is now owned by the Wittelsbach family (who ruled Bavaria for 7 centuries).  Everything inside was original which was pretty cool.  The King and Queen had separate chambers on different floors but there was a secret door in the Queens room that went directly to the Kings room....hmmmm.... :). Ludwig had holes drilled in the ceiling in his bedroom and put candles out there to seem as if he was looking at the stars.  He sure was a dreamer and a romantic, dreaming up his perfect castle that he was able to execute on his 18th birthday when he inherited the throne.

After the tour we had about an hour and a half to get up to Neuschwanstein.  It looks like it's just up the hill but oh it's not!  We received a map at the ticket office with the time and distance between the castles so that you can plan accordingly and not miss your scheduled time otherwise you are out of luck!  The map said we had a 55 minute climb, well that would be going super slow I guess and we made it in about a half hour.  There are amazing views of the village from Neuschwanstein as well as the other castle.  We grabbed a snack at one of the tourist/souvenir huts and waited again for our number to flash. There must not have been enough English speaking people so they put us on an audio tour with about two tour busses worth of people.  Here we really were ushered through like cattle but we still saw a bunch of the castle, Ludwig’s lavish quarters with the original finishing’s.  Really it's not all that old even though it looks like it but it was built from 1869-1886 and only a third of it was finished (due to Ludwig’s death).  He spent 17 years building it but only lived in it for about 6 months before he was dethroned.  He was declared mentally unfit to rule Bavaria and was taken away from Neuschwanstein.  Two days later he and his doctor were found dead in a lake but no one knows if his death was murder or suicide.  Maybe we will get some clues in the book we bought about him?!  

After Neuschwanstein we climbed another 15 minutes to Mary's Bridgefor an unbelievable view of the castle.  It was pretty high up there but for some reason that didn't make me want to lose my stomach.   The long decent to even ground wasn't too bad.  We stopped at the bottom of the hill at the Jägerhäus for some "kings" snacks of bread, cheese, grapes and beer.  Plus it was a beautiful afternoon and a lovely view of the castle.  We had an hour or so drive ahead of us to the next stop in Bregenz, Austria.

 

Pictures from the day:

Königsschlösser 10.6.11

Friday October 7th  
We didn't have any plans set in stone for this leg of our trip.  The hotel we stayed in Bregenz was super nice, like a suite, right in the pedestrian area of the town.  We window shopped and grabbed some dinner at a Döner/Pizza shop - which is an interesting specialty mix!  We headed back to the hotel, we have had a busy and fun week.   It's only about 200 meters from a very large lake in the area, Lake Constance, or the Bodensee, as it's called so we thought we would check out some sights around it on Friday.  There are 4 countries that border it, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein (which I don't think actually borders it but is right in the area).   Friday when we woke up it was yucky, miserable weather, so after a tasty breakfast we headed in the direction of home making a few pit stops on the way.  The weather wasn't really cooperative so we couldn't enjoy the beauty of the lake.  We did go through a very abundant apple orchard area and I was looking for a cider shop to stop in for cider donuts!  No luck!  We made it to Meersburg where we wanted to see Germany's oldest standing castle but it was pouring so instead we went to a tourist info building that also had a wine museum where we bought a few different kinds.  Then if we like it we can go back to tour the area when it's nicer out!
 
We took a very scenic drive home through the Black Forest and it was really something to see all of these quaint little hillside villages tucked away in the trees.  It was still drizzly but the sun was trying to shine.  So, our week long trip has come to an end. The closer we got to home the more traffic we ran into and it was mid-afternoon!  Stau's to the max!  Our total drive time of 4.5 hours really took about 8 but it was a good chance to get caught up on the week.  It was fast paced but tons of fun with so much to see and so very much worth it.