Neuschwanstein

Today Elizabeth and I headed off to Fussen to see the Neuschwanstein (Disney) castle. We took a train 2 hours to the cute little town of Fussen and got some lovely views of the snow covered German countryside. To get to the castle, you have to go from the train station to a ticket center in Town and then walk or take horse drawn carriage up a mountain. When we got off the train, Elizabeth and I saw the tourists hound the bus to the ticket center, but we decided we would prefer to walk. We even found a tourist information store and got maps, but when we realized no one else was walking on the road in the direction we were going, we decided to ask a nice older woman walking towards us if we were going the right way. She looked at us like we were crazy and pointed to the bus stop and recommended we take the bus. Well unfortunately, now we had missed the bus to the castle and the next bus wouldn't be there for another hour.

We could have waited, but we needed to pick up our reservation tickets at least an hour in advance of our tour. Magically we saw a taxi and decided it was worth our euros. On the 5km drive to the ticket center, we saw winding roads with snow covered sidewalks which further confirmed our poor decision making. 10 euros later, we had licked our wounds and were now in front of the ticket office. The good news is that we had made reservations, which allowed us to cut the really long line and instead get helped right away. Our tour of the castle (the only way you can go inside) was to begin in an hour which gave us the perfect amount of time to walk 30 minutes up the mountain (where there were now actually a ton of people walking) and then enjoy some hot cocoa with a view.


The castle itself was quite lovely and we made friends with an adorable family from Ohio who's son was studying abroad in Copenhagen. The tour was short and sweet, and we got to see King Ludwig's opulent bedroom, swan covered living room, manmade indoor cave, and a few other rooms. We both noticed his bed was a little small and when we asked the tour guide if he had a wife, he responded "we are quite sure he was gay."

After our castle tour, we were walking down the mountain and we saw some of the people we had come with on the train to Fussen, just making their way up the mountain. So basically, Elizabeth made a good decision in getting a reservation, which we think negates our prior bad decision in missing the bus and paying for a taxi.