Yesterday we made a day trip to Neuschwanstein Castle and we had such a good time. The castle is located in the very south of Bavaria, close to the Austrian border. The drive was beautiful and a lot more Alpine than I expected. As a bonus, we found a great radio station with traditional German music, just the sort you'd hear on a Rick Steves show about Bavaria.
To visit Neuschwanstein, one must pay for parking in the village below, stand in a long line for only three stalls in the ladies room, stand in another line for admission tickets, join the crowd of other American, Italian and Japanese visitors streaming up the 30-minute steep walk to the castle itself, where you wait for your tour number to appear on a digital signboard. The crowds were actually pretty bearable and the lines not too long, but I shudder to imagine what it's like in July!
But it's all worth it, especially this time of year. Both of us were won over to the castle's charms despite it being so new (1880s) and only slightly less "fake" than the Cinderella version at Disneyland (it was built to recreate a Romantic vision of the Middle Ages). But it's lovely and the stuff of fairy tales.
But the best part is its gorgeous location in the foothills of the Alps. It overlooks two blue lakes and a green valley and sheer cliffs rise up behind it. Really incredible, and we can easily understand why King Ludwig wanted to live here. We'd build a medieval-looking castle there too, if we could.
The guided tour was quite short. The interior was very elaborately decorated, mostly tastefully so. Photos weren't allowed, but I can actually see why that's important to keep the tour moving. Our tour guide had the worst accent I've ever heard from a German, which sounded like a screechy Australian accent mixed with German. Odd. But it was nice to have the tour in English at all, unlike at the Wartburg. Incidentally, the Wartburg was one of the inspirations for this castle.
It turns out the path to the bridge is not technically passable in winter. But why should we let silly barriers like this get in the way of good fun and good photos? So we followed lots of other visitors in climbing around and over various fences to go to the bridge.
The path wasn't actually dangerous. They just hadn't cleared the path of snow and ice, which made for some slippery moments. But the paths were wide and the guard rails were good so the worst that would happen is falling on your butt. Happily, we didn't. I did briefly pull something in my leg after swinging it over a fence, but recovered quickly. It's hard being old.
View from the bridge
When our weary and freezing bones reached the bottom again, we stopped for a late lunch in the first restaurant that looked open. We had a decent meal of goulash soup and salad (for David) and schnitzel with kasespatzle (cheese dumplings) (for me). We made it back to our comfortable hotel room just before dark and barely moved the rest of the night.