So, we had a great time this weekend visiting southern Germany. The trip down was kinda hectic, and wore us out. We wanted to spend more time in Munich, but we left pretty late (As per my family) and so we got there in time to see the Glockenspiel, and that's about it. We then made our way to our Youth Hostel, took a long sight seeing tour (As my Oma firmly said, she was never lost, even if we didn't know where we were). We got there, and they were nice enough to reheat us dinner, as they had stopped serving it 2 hours prior.
Saturday was the fun day. We drove down to the small town situated between the two castles, and began our beautiful day. The temperature was perfect, and the mountains were beautiful. The castles are located in the middle of the Alps. We first took a tour at Castle Hohenschangau. This was a castle that was built in the middle of this beautiful area, and was used as a summer hunting and relaxation resort. It is where King Ludwig II grew up.
To get to the castle, we took a horse drawn carriage. It wasn't very pretty looking, as horses' don't draw very well... :P. But really, it was wonderful. The path went right next to the lake and the view just blew my mind.
The castle itself was beautiful inside. The main part of it consisted of 3 floors. The Queen's floor, the King's floor, and the children's floor. There was over 90 "Sectos", or painted pictures on the walls. They were created in a very romantic fashion. The walls were in great shape, even after 150+ years. All-in-all, definitely a place I'd love to live in.
We took a carriage back down, and then went to the bus stop. In all of our books, it said "Bus trip takes 30 minutes". In reality, it only took us 5. The twists and turns were kinda scary, but it gave us a chance to go and visit Marienbrueke, or Maria's Bridge. And the view from that bridge to the castle... gorgeous. Please see pictures posted on Kayla's facebook to see what I mean. It was situated over a waterfall, and I would have loved to go and visit the clear waters at the bottom. We didn't have enough time though :(.
Castle Neuschwanstein was very nice to go see again, and even more beautiful then I previously remembered. A couple interesting facts, it took 17 years of building before Ludwig II could move into the castle. He only lived in the castle a total of 172 days, before he died under mysterious circumstances and construction on the castle was halted. In his bedroom, the woodwork was the most impressive by far. It took 14 wood carvers 4 years to make all of the elaborate carvings in the wood. Also, in a hidden door in the King's bedroom, was a toilet with water that came up from the water in the mountain springs by natural pressure. The toilet also was fully automatic, and would flush as soon as the King got up off of it. Impressive for this being the 1860s. Finally, the entire tour includes 375 steps, while the tour advertisements informed us that there would only be about 300.
Interesting to note, I definitely have changed since the last time I went there. I must have been in a rush or not wanted to go to the castle when I was younger (I was 17 at the time), and don't remember much of it. I definitely appreciated the artwork this time a lot more.
Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures of the inside of the castle. So we took plenty from the outside and of the surrounding mountains. This is definitely a place that I suggest people should visit if they ever get the chance. The serenity and nature was very nice and made the walking well worth it.
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