As the years passed, and my list of travel destinations grew, the Neuschwanstein Castle was nowhere near the top of my wish list. But it just seemed to work with the places we wanted to go in Austria for this trip, so there you go.
Warning: everything is closed in Fussen on Sunday. We were able to find a single bakery that was open and had a muffin. Second warning: the buses run very infrequently on Sundays. Fussen is only a couple miles down the road from the castle, but it was supposed to rain so we didn't want to walk. We ended up taking a cab for a couple euro more.
You purchase a ticket at the bottom of the hill and get a tour time. Ask your hotel if they have a discount form. We just had to fill out a form and it knocked a couple euros off our admission, every little bit helps. Our tour time was at 10:25am, not a long wait, so we waited in the shuttle line and went up. By the time we climbed up the rest of the hill from the shuttle, we only had about a ten minute wait for our tour to begin.
The countryside surrounding the castle is stunning and we were looking out the castle windows at every opportunity.
The entire interior of the castle is a tribute to Wagner's operas, so it was interesting to be in a castle that didn't have family portraits or religious paintings everywhere. Instead, there were a lot of swans. King Ludwig's bedroom was small but the woodwork was amazing. The top of his bed reminded me of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
After the castle tour, we walked over to the bridge to get a good view of the castle. When we got there, the bridge was very crowded and the wooden boards were creaking and moving and I became paralyzed with fear. I'm not good with heights to begin with, but when there's movement and noise, I go into panic mode. I had to get off. Once some of the people left, I was able to go back and take photos.
When had taken our fill of photos, we walked back down to the bottom along a wooded trail that followed a creak. There was a small waterfall and rapids, and all the beautiful water noises that came with them.
You can see the bridge way up there.
Someone took the time to pile stacks of rocks.
We separated from the creek and walked back toward the little town area. We passed this gorgeous old house that looked straight out of a movie.
Back at the bottom, we ate at the first restaurant we walked by because we were starving. Hubs had some kind of sausage with sauerkraut.
I had currywurst with fries.
2 entrees + 2 waters = 25.50 euro.
At the bottom of the hill is King Ludwig's "old" castle, the one he grew up in. The one from which he dreamed about creating another castle on top of the hill that he looked upon during his childhood. Oh to be a young, rich king in Bavaria. But things didn't turn out so well for him, so perhaps I'm lucky.
We took the bus back to Fussen. The temperature dropped and the rain came back. We were trying to find take-out sandwiches so we wouldn't have to go back out in the rainy cold later, but no luck. We did stumble upon a shop that sold "snowballs."
It tasted like a ball of animal crackers coated with chocolate and frosting, and filled with frosting. 2.90 euro.
By late afternoon it was raining pretty heavily, so we trudged back to the guesthouse and lounged for awhile with some German TV. The rain was still coming down when we reluctantly walked back into town for dinner. We used Rick Steve's recommendations since I didn't research any restaurants in Fussen before the trip. We decided to go to the first one we came across, which happened to be La Perla, an Italian restaurant.
We ordered two large beers. Hubs had an artichoke pizza.
I had mushroom.
They were good, like in Italy. Light and crispy with a flavorful sauce.
How come everyone in the world can make a good pizza except for LA?
2 beers + 2 pizzas + tip = 25 euro.
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