We drove a beautiful country road almost the entire way thanks to our knowledgeable Mrs. GPS. It was so very beautiful. There was a magnificent lake - I don't have the words to describe it. And we did not take any photos. Why? Well, we wanted to get to the castles and thought we'd take photos on the way back when we could take our time. Mrs. GPS took us home a different way so we never saw the beautiful lake or country road again. Lesson learned: When you see something you like, take a photo right then!!
Most farm houses have a place for guests to sleep. If you're backpacking and need a place to sleep, you just walk up to a farm house and ask to sleep there. They charge a small fee for letting you sleep there and feeding you breakfast. I'm not sure I'm brave enough to try it but one of our tour guides say folks do it all the time - especially during the warmer months.
For all our deer-lovin' friends
The roads wind in and out of Germany and Austria. We kept seeing signs as we drove throughout the day.
We knew we were getting close to the castles so we stopped in Fussen for lunch. For a cloudy, rainy day in October, it was still busy there. We found a place to park then started walking. We found a pizzeria that we knew would please everyone. Our waiter wasn't quite as good with English as some other restaurants we had tried. Thankfully, everything we ordered was yummy!
The egg yolk in the middle of this pizza was a bit of a surprise. Guess it goes with the bacon.
Tasty calzone for our boy
We didn't spend much time in Füssen because we wanted to get to the castles. It wasn't long until we had our first glimpses of them. King Ludwig II led an interesting life to say the least. And six weeks after his untimely and unexpected - and somewhat unexplainable - death, his castle was opened for public tours.
Hohenschwangau Castle - the childhood castle of King Ludwig II
Neuschwanstein Castle - the castle King Ludwig II was building when he died
This was as close as we got to Hohenschwangau Castle.
Walking up the road to Neuschwanstein Castle - the closer we got, the larger it got!
Tourists can walk across the bridge and see both castles and the beautiful scenery of the area.
A portion of the steps to get to the bottom of the waterfalls
A very small portion of Neuschwanstein Castle
Part of the base of Neuschwanstein Castle - can you imagine moving all that stone in the middle/late 1800's up the mountain to build this castle?
Five happy Freelands and one unhappy girl who wanted a euro to look through the telescope even though we were in a hurry
We could see a small church with a lake behind it from up on the side of the mountain.
We weren't allowed to take photos inside the castle. (Really!? I paid to see this place and remember it!) I did snap a few from the outside walkways though.
Proof we were inside the castle. :)
King Ludwig II could see his childhood home from his new castle.
This photo was taken from the bridge above the waterfall. So do you recognize this castle yet? It was used as the model of a very popular castle in the US.
The little church we saw from the castle - We ended up driving right past it on our way back to Schliersee.
The church with the castle in the background
No one told us that the last bus would run to go back down the mountain before the tours ended. So we ended up having to walk all the way down which used about 45 minutes we didn't expect to spend there. We did not have time to do anything else around the castle. For a few brief minutes, we wondered if we were going to even get out of the parking lot since they had closed all the gates. We finally found one small road that led out but it caused Mrs. GPS to take us home a different route, missing the magnificent lake. We found a place to eat on the way back then took time to get some laundry done. That is a story for another day.
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