Castles in the Mountains
Breakfast here is also a buffet style with eggs and bacon and sausage. Plus rolls, croissant, fruit, yogurt and more. So far no places have had non-dairy options for yogurt or milk, so I stick to bread, meats and eggs.
Today we are heading to two fairytale castles on the northern edge of the Bavarian Alps. We have reservations to tour the Neuschwanstein Castle at 9:20 AM. The castle is located up a steep hill that takes 45+ minutes to walk up, but there is also a shuttle you can pay to take you up the hill to a drop off location closer to the castle.
They recommend being in the town below 1.5-2 hours before your tour to give you enough time to get up the mountain. By the time we get to the town we are only about an hour out from our tour, so cutting it a bit close.
We start trying to figure out where the shuttle leaves from. We see some signs that say "tickets" and point up the hill so we follow that, but that leads to a building that is closed. Based on information sent by the castle there is a shuttle near Car Park 4. We walk that way and find the bus, but we don't know how to get tickets. I see some people just get on the bus, and I realize the tickets are bought from the driver.
By the time the bus is ready to leave, we only have 30 minutes before our tour will be starting. After our bus ride and a 15 minute walk we arrive 10 minutes before our tour starts. They let us inside the gate to wait which is nice because it's been lightly raining this whole time.
Once in the castle they give us each an audio device. Our tour is in English and the tour guide speaks into a microphone device and it plays through each device held by a person. It is quiet enough that you need to hold it to your ear to hear but it works really well.
The tour takes about 30 minutes. No photography is allowed so I have no pictures but it's very interesting. Beautiful paintings painted on the plaster of each wall of the rooms. King Ludvig II loved operas, so almost all the paintings are from different operas. There are basically no family pictures in the castle.
Here's some quick history on this castle. King Ludwig II started construction on this castle in 1869 after removing ruins from two older fortresses. In 1884 the king moved into the still unfinished castle, which he lived in for only 172 days. After spending around 6.2 million German gold marks (around $40-50 million today) he was deemed to be insane for going so much into debt. He was removed from the office of the King and found only a short time later drowned in a lake, although he was known as a good swimmer.
Only 200 rooms were ever finished in the castle, but most of those were servant rooms. Only 14 rooms and halls were finished on the 3rd and 4th floors where the king stayed. Including the worlds first "mancave" fit with an indoor waterfall and artificial stalactites. There's even a secret door that looks like rock that when opened brings you to a conservatory that has views of the Alps...unfortunately they don't let you go into that area on the tour.
The throne room is the most impressive. Lots of gold everywhere, the only thing missing is the throne, as King Ludvig II died before a throne was made.
You pass through the kitchen area on the way out
After our tour we go into a little theatre that has a video with animations showing additional plans King Ludvig II had for the castle that never happened and some for two other castles he wanted to build.
There is a little café on that same level and they sell Bavarian pretzels, so we buy one to try and it is terrible, mainly because it is very hard and dry. I'm sure it could have been better warm. The salt on it was also very unevenly distributed. I brushed some of the salt off onto our plate so we can dip the other parts in it if we wanted.
Nate left his water bottle in the car and he buys a Sprite as it was cheaper than water. Most restaurants have only Coke (regular and diet), Sprite, or a Fanta-type orange drink.
Mary's Bridge in the background
Through the gift shop we go, as they make us pass through two different gift shops to exit the castle. We let the kids pick one thing each and I get a Christmas ornament and magnet, as a family trip memento.
Next we walk to Mary's Bridge, which is an iron-cable suspension bridge that hangs 90 meters (295 feet) above the Pöllat Gorge below. This bridge offers a great view of the Neuschwanstein Castle and the landscape beyond. It is still raining as we walk along, but luckily our rain coats keep us mostly dry.
The walk to the bridge is most of the way uphill which makes my calves burn, as we have done lots of stairs in the castle already. The bridge is a little sketchy feeling as you walk across, the wooden boards bend and flex with lots of people walking on them. We take some pictures on the bridge and then head back to the bus stop which isn't far away. There is a bus waiting already and we quickly rush there so we don't have to wait for the next bus which could take 20 minutes or so.
The view of the castle from Mary's Bridge
We were the first on the bus and it leaves after about 5 minutes. It is still raining and so we look around in different gift shops in town to kill time and get out of the rain.
We have a tour of the Hohenschwangau Castle which you also access from this town. Our tour isn't until 3:05 so we have lots of time to kill. My feet are getting wet from the rain so I want to get out of the weather. There is a museum in town called the museum of the Bavarian Kings, so we head there. It has lots of information to listen to on an audio tour, which would be a lot to listen to for the kids, so we skip around and listen to select things by objects or pictures that look more interesting.
They have King Ludvig's royal robe along with the painting below where he is wearing it. It is very ornate blue with fur lining. We are not allowed to take pictures of it though.
King Ludwig II of Bavaria (1887), published in: German History in Documents and Images, <https://germanhistorydocs.org/en/forging-an-empire-bismarckian-germany-1866-1890/ghdi:image-5094>
By this time it is after lunch but with our pretzel snack and big breakfast we aren't all that hungry. We find a hotdog stand and order a couple to share. They have some tables and benches under some umbrellas, and we find a bench that is still dry. Thankfully the rain has finally stopped. The hotdogs come in a pretzel bun and taste so good we order a second round.
The hotdogs have ketchup and some dried onion flakes on them
We bring some things back to the car and then walk up the steep pathway that brings us to the Hohenschwangau Castle.
Here is a brief history on this castle. This castle was originally called the Schwanstein Castle and was built in the 12th century by the knights of Schwangau. It was used for about 400 years before it fell into ruin. In 1832 King Maximilian II, the father of Ludwig II, acquired the ruin and rebuilt it according to it's original plans. It was mainly used as a summer residence for the family.
This castle had a whole floor for the women of the castle, as well as an entire floor for the men of the castle. With the kings bedroom even having a secret door and stairwell down to the queens bedroom.
After Ludwig II died, Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria (uncle to Ludwig II) ascended the throne. In his older age he was confined to a wheelchair so he had an elevator installed in the castle as he felt bad having the servants haul him up and down the stairs, although he once remarked that he didn't think the elevator was any faster. He lived to be 91.
The town below is Hohenschwangau
It starts raining again so the kids and I huddle under a tree. They are almost shivering from being cold, so I try to warm them up. Nate has to take a work call and is in a quiet area away from other people.
Eventually it is time to go in and we start off by climbing up several flights of stairs making my calves burn once again.
For this tour each person gets a little player in their language. The tour guide presses a button on their remote that makes your player play the appropriate information for the room. Sometimes he would then add a few extra comments on the room in English and German.
This was one of the castles King Ludvig II lived in when he was a child, and his successor used the castle until he died in 1912. They opened it to the public in 1913. They had even given tours of it while they used the castle as a summer palace, letting the public see it when they were away or if important guests visited the king would give tours himself.
This castle is similar to Neuschwanstein having paintings on the walls themselves instead of paintings hung on the walls. Almost no family pictures once again, instead the paintings in this castle depict different events in history.
This tour is a little longer than Neuschwanstein and when it's done we quickly make our way back to the car as we have a long drive to go to our hotel for the night.
We decide to stop in a town called Ilshofen to see the city gate, this was a place my Papa had seen and taken a picture of in Germany after the war was over and he went to Germany for occupation.
After finding the gate our navigation had us take backroads to head to Rothlesburg ob der Tauber where we are going to stay.
As we are approaching the city, we don't trust our GPS telling us to turn into a cobblestone path through a narrow city gate that looks ancient, so we park outside the city walls and walk in to find the hotel and get directions to where we should park for the night. The guy says that way into the city would normally work, but there is road construction closing a section of the road. He gives us directions going in a different city gate entrance on the other side.
Old outer city wall
Guard house at the gate entrance to the city
This town is the most well preserved medieval town with a fortified wall around the city. The narrow gates to get in are only wide enough for one car at a time, so hopefully you don't meet a car or one person will need to back up.
By the time we park and get into our room we need to find something to eat. I had planned on grabbing something like fast food along the autobahn on our way, but when our GPS had us use back roads we didn't pass any places to eat.
View of the city gate from our hotel window
This spot known as Plönlein is the most photographed spot in town. The upper gate is called Sieber tower, and the lower gate (behind me) is called Kobolzell tower. The Sieber tower was built in 1385 and served as the southern boundary and defensive entrance to the old town before the city expanded. The Kobolzell gate was originally built in 1360, and rebuilt in 1727.
All the shops are already closed, but we can still admire what they have in the windows as we walk by
Nate finds a place that is about a 5 min walk away. But when we get there they only have a table for two left. By this time it is around 8:45 PM and lots of places are already closed. We check with two other places that stay open until 10, but they said no because their kitchen is closing soon. We finally find an Italian place that welcomes us. It turns out to be a good thing as the food is amazing and the people are very friendly.
I have spaghetti and Nate has a garlic cream pasta while the kids share pizza.
Even though our food comes out quickly, it's almost 10 PM by the time we are getting back to our hotel. As we are getting ready for bed Kailey asks if I know where her blanket is. She had brought a blanket from home that had been a Christmas gift from my brother, so it was special. I tell her hopefully it is in a different bag in the car, and that we will look for it tomorrow.
Unfortunately we discover it got left at our previous hotel which is many hours away. Thankfully they still sell it, so we'll have to get a replacement when we get home)
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