We had decided that the second day in München would not be spent in München at all. Instead we were going to take a little drive down to Neuschwanstein in the southern part of Bayern and see one of Germany’s most popular tourist attractions. The drive down would be about 200 kilometers, which meant no more 2 hours, unless we happened to get a little lost on the way, or we stopped to see something else.
After having breakfast (and having that little german lady offer me an egg for breakfast once again) , we left the hotel. It was around 10:30 when we got in the car and headed out of the city, southbound for Neuschwanstein. The drive down was relatively uneventful with the exception of a girl that got brownie points with us because she was wearing a Ferrari shirt.
We stopped at a smaller palace on the way down called Linderhof which, like Neuschwanstein, was built by the clinically insane King Ludwig II. Linderhof is notably smaller and a palace rather than a castle like Neuschwanstein. That said, I wasn’t extremely enthusiastic about our stop (I actually remember complaining a little about it to Billy) because I wanted to get to Neuschwanstein already. We wandered around the exterior of the palace and through the formal gardens (although I’m not sure if we actually wandered through all 5 sections of them) and didn’t actually get to see the interior of the palace.
We spent about 45 mins wandering around taking shots of the area.
It was time to go back to the parking lot and hop in our german bullet and continue our epic southbound journey. The drive from Linderhof to Neuschwanstein was interesting because it involved spending a whole 20 minutes driving through Austria, and then looping back around into Germany and ending up at our destination. We chose this way because it went through Austria, which meant we’d see the Alps, so it would be more scenic….plus we were quite familiar with the Deutsche Landschaft by now.
I was actually surprised as to how much the Alps and northern Austria reminded me of BC and the Rockies. Here’s a few shots when we stopped by a lake, since I was feeling a little car sick (which rarely happens…I bet it was that chicken back in Paris)
I thought this overpass was interesting looking
We made it to the town of Füssen shortly after 1:30, and looked for parking. We were thinking that maybe we could drive up to the castle, but we soon realized that we would have to take a shuttle bus to go up (rather than walk).
this is the castle as seen from the bottom.
we took the bus up the hill and got out at the top right under the Schloss. We decided that we would hang out and check out the area before we went and took a tour inside the castle. We bought tickets for a tour later on, and headed for the Marienbrücke, which is said to have the best view of the castle and surrounding area. This is what the castle looked like from the bridge.
We headed back down from the bridge, and since we still had some time to spare, we decided that now would be a good time to grab some food. Since we were in Bavaria, I went for something very bayerisch…Weisswurst und Sauerkraut.
After eating we killed a little more time and waited for our tour to start. sadly cameras are not allowed inside the castle, so I took none.
The castle itself is strange. Since the King who built it was insane, it doesn’t have that typical classical castle feel. Every room is different, and many of them I found to feel and look a little tacky. I think the exterior of the castle is much more interesting than the interior. That said, there were a few things that I remember finding interesting, but I don’t really remember what they were.
The drive back was very enjoyable, since we took a different route through Germany instead of looping through Austria again. I drove for a short while, but wasn’t feeling up to it so Billy drove the rest of the way. After we got back to our Hotel in München we hit the streets for a while and grabbed some pizza, went to the train station, checked out the neighborhood and called it a night.
The next day would be our last day in München.
