May 9th

We went to Neuschwanstein in Bayern today. It is a famous castle, the Disney castle was based on its design. We drove for a couple hours then arrived there in the late morning. We went to buy tickets to take the tour through the castle, but the line was so long that we would have had to wait 6 hours to get inside. We decided to just look from the outside – which was actually a good thing, because only a few rooms are open to visitors inside so it wouldn’t have been worth it. We walked up the hill to the castle and it truly was something special. We could go into the inner courtyard and look from the outside, and that was enough. It lived up to its name and was easily the most striking castle I’ve ever seen. We walked over to the bridge across the valley and took in another amazing view of Neuschwanstein. The older, original castle – Hohenschwangau (I think) didn’t have as long of a ticket line, so we signed up for a tour. While we waited for our tour to start we had lunch near one of the 3 small lakes in the area. Around 3:30 we got to go through Hohenschwangau. Both castles acted as mountain/hunting getaways for the Bavarian Kings back in the day. The tour took us through all of the lavish rooms. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures, but I managed to snag a few good ones. Gifts to the royalty were on display, as well as a 500 year old loaf of bread.  At the end of the tour we walked back to the car just as it started to rain. It was a great day, and we drove home through the Bregenzerwald over Warth. That evening I went out with Mike, Shannon and one of Mikes school friends in Dornbirn.