Neuschwanstein Castle Tour

This past Saturday the family took a day trip to far southern Germany, only a couple of miles from the Austria border to see the famous Neuschwanstein Castle. This is known to be the inspiration for Walt Disney's creation of Cinderella's castle at Disney world and the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland. This destination is the first place that we identified as a must do while we are in Germany. It did not disappoint, although you may be surprised by the reasons we feel it is on the top of the list of must see things in Bavaria......so far.

When we first got here in early August we stayed in a Hotel for the first couple of weeks. It was there I came across a flyer for Mike's Bike Tours and the tour they offer to Neuschwanstein. Instead of us just driving down there, taking the tour, and driving back I reserved four spots on this tour due to the many additional activities they offer. The first order of business was to be in the middle of Munich by 8:30 Saturday morning to catch the tour bus. Even though we have been lucky with the public transportation I decided to drive down there. We found a parking garage right next to the meeting spot for the bus tour and the all day parking fee was equal to the cost of the train ticket. Luckily it was early enough that traffic was very light and we made it to the parking garage on time. We only had to walk a few steps outside of the parking garage to meet up with our tour. There were a total of 30 people on this tour. We climbed aboard the air conditioned and comfortable bus around 9:00, listed to the instructions and we were on our way by 9:15. It was going to be about one hour and forty five minutes drive to get there. We took the autobahn west from Munich and turned south to see some areas that we have not been to yet. It was a very relaxing ride with some good scenery.

This is one of the only pictures that turned out okay. It is from inside the bus so you can see some reflections from the window. During the ride they played us an information DVD about Ludwig II. This was a little different than what we had heard previously. Our other castle tours so far have just included the official government sponsored tour guides taking us through the interior of these amazing places. Previously we had been to Herrenchiemsee, which is one of the three castles that Ludwig II had commissioned to be built. Apparently we only got part of the story behind this mysterious King of Bavaria. First of all, I did not realize Germany was only unified under one government in 1871. I thought it was much older than that. There was a lot of background information related to Prussia and France and how everything eventually came about. The background on Ludwig II included details the official government tours do not discuss.

The picture above was our fist sighting of Neuschwanstein Castle, again through the bus window. I was surprised to see it so low, all of the pictures I had seen in the past made me think it was high on top of the mountain. We were getting very excited, now that we were close to our destination. If you look closely in this picture you can see another castle to the right and a little lower. 

This is Hohenschwangau Castle where Ludwig II was raised. The tour information told us that Ludwig and his brother were not raised under great conditions by their parents King Maximillian II and Queen Marie. The parents were indifferent to the children to the point servants were sneaking them food to keep them alive. At age 18 Ludwig II became king after the sudden death of his father. According to the tour guide information, Ludwig II was never married for a good reason. He had a thing for the composer Richard Wagner and they were not talking about the music. Neuschwanstein Castle's interior has many scenes from Wagner's operas. Bavarian ministers were concerned about the influence Wagner had over Ludwig. This is where the tour information gave us theories behind the unusual death of Ludwig II some years later. He was found dead in a lake with a psychiatrist that had been part of a group that took Ludwig out of power him a couple of days earlier for being insane. There are many details I left out to try and not bore everyone. It was interesting to hear the other side of the story. The theories they threw out are in line with others that are not directly affiliated with the German government.  

We pulled up into the parking lot and picked up the tour guide that lives in this area. The bus then drove to the bike barn where we started our first extra curricular activity. It was about a 90 minute bike ride on relatively flat ground around the valley next to the castles. This was the first time any of us had been on a bicycle in a couple of months since ours are in the sea shipment, to be delivered once we are in the new house. Katherine had to get the hang of it quick. The very beginning was a decent downhill. She did really good considering the circumstances. We stayed at the back of the pack most of the time. She fell behind at first and at the end but did really good for most of the trip. The guides were really really good. The main guy led the group and held up traffic for safe street crossings, which was only a couple of times. His live-in girlfriend was the other guide. She stayed in the back to make sure nobody was left behind. Above you can see the castle in the distance.  

This pic is just a representation of part of the ride. It was really fun. I think about 70% of the trail was concrete or asphalt, but there were some areas of loose gravel which were more difficult for Katherine to manage. She fell once, but made it to the ground gracefully with "no damage", as she told some of our fellow tourists. 

The guides did a good job of stopping at certain places to get good pictures. They took the one above and below for us at different areas. The one below you can see both castles again. 

This is a far away picture zoomed in with Cindy's fancy camera and lens. They get better. 

One stop along the bike ride was to Swan Lake. People on the tour had the option of jumping in to take a swim. I think about four or five people actually did. That morning I had packed swim suits and other stuff, but decided the kids would not do it because it would be too cold, and it would result in a second back pack to keep up with all day. When we got there I told the kids they could get in, that I had a change of clothes for them. They felt the water and said it was too cold. To give you an idea of the temperature, I was riding a bicycle in full sun and I was not hot. The people that did get in got out pretty quickly. After a 15 minute break we continued on.

We had an eventful end to the bike ride. At one point Katherine's legs started to fail her. She lost it. She just started crying and refused to pedal any longer. After some coaxing and a couple of back-to-back water breaks she was finally able to get down the last flat and semi downhill part. The last 500 meters or so was back up the hill and she was having none of it. I propped her bicycle on the frame of my bike and walked the bikes up the hill. David managed to pedal a big portion of the hill but ended up walking his bike the last part of it. Cindy stayed back with me to help get Katherine back. Once we got back we had a hot lunch and water waiting for us at the restaurant. Part of what I loved about the tour was taking all of the logistical problems out of consideration. When you go to a place like this you are not always sure where to go, what to do, or how much time any of it takes. They had the timing for everything down. We had ordered our food on the bus ride in the morning so they could have it ready once we arrived from the bike tour. Also, I was fully expecting everything on the tour to be in German. I guess it turns out that most people that pay for these tours are tourists and most of the time English speaking. The tour guide was South African and his girlfriend I think was Norwegian. Another cool aspect of the tour was you did have options, you did not have to stick with one itinerary for the whole group. You did not have to take the bike tour, you could tour the other castle instead. After lunch you could had your choice of several activities. One of those option is to do a tandem paragliding. Cindy was wanting to do this and I think will go back at some point just for that. On this day they had a limited number of tandem instructors and the couple of other people that wanted to do it were unable to due to due to timing. Below you can see how far up these para gliders were. 

Another option was the Alpine Slide. We had seen a YouTube video of this before and wanted to make sure and do it while we were here. Below is the automatic lift to the top of the slide. Pretty cool that you don't have to climb a mountain to slide down it. Just get on your slide and ride it up to the top. David rode by himself and Cindy rode with Katherine. There was a single lever that you pulled back on to slow down. The first time we rode it we were a little scared since the tour guide warned that once a year someone in his group goes too fast, falls off, and slides down a metal slide baking in direct sunlight. It did not sound pretty. Turns out it is a pretty mild ride. I think our sleds were not high performance enough to get going too fast. This was cheaper than I thought it would be too. About 1.90 euro to ride. It takes about 5 minutes to go up and over two minutes down. Not too bad. Also, no lines, just get your ticket and get on.

David and Katherine wanted to ride it again so I was able to get an action shot of them going down the slide. Below is a little video that I took when I did it. The second part of the video is the trampoline thing that the kids wanted to do also. I did not edit out the first part. Cindy thinks she got a defective slide the first time, it would not go. That ended up backing everyone up and led to me running over David.

After the slide, trampoline, and some gelato it was finally time to take the castle tour. Once again we had a choice. Take a bus up to the castle or the uphill hike. David and Katherine wanted to hike, but Cindy was not having it with Katherine. The guide described it as a pretty tough hike with the final 10 minutes solid stairs. I was absolutely going to do the hike, and I was going to let Katherine go too. Cindy was very firm with her objection, after the bike ride when she was worn out she had added the trampoline and other activities prior to further sap her energy. As Cindy and Katherine departed for the bus the tour guide told her "good decision". In the end I think it was too. David had no problem with the hike, he was waiting for me after about half way up. It was a tough climb, relentless uphill grade for 45 minutes. I found myself flashing back to my high school basketball days running suicides in the gym. I had to force myself to keep going. I was in the zone. It came came to a sudden end when I looked after after completing the one millionth step to see Cindy and Katherine waiting there. In my mind I was only half to two thirds done so I was mentally prepared to go further, but very happy to find out I was done. 

This pass was pretty early on. Along a river with many waterfalls. 

See the wooden channel on the left side? This is original to the castle and had something to do with getting water to the castle or generating a higher flow down steam for some reason. I don't remember as I was catching my breath and could care less at the time. The next several pics are along the path up to the castle. This is the back way and not normally used for ascending up. Many people were coming down after going up either via bus or walking the front route that is less steep. Our guide pointed out it was safer to go up on this route since a fall going up is not too bad; but a fall going down could be very serious. I agreed.

These are not natural rock formations. The kids, during summer, make these stacks each year when the river is lower. They say when the rains come or the spring thaw it knocks them down again. The picture below is from the same area looking up to Marie's Bridge. This was a bridge that Ludwig's mother had put in due to her love of hiking.

It took me a while to see it, but also from this same rock pile area this is the view of the castle. It was encouraging that it was now closer after all of the stairs so far. 

While David and I were hiking up Cindy and Katherine went to the bridge. After I made it to castle level, Cindy took David back to the bridge for him to see it and she took this amazing picture. This is not lifted off of the Internet, this is a Cindy Ferguson original below. 

She also took this panoramic by and put it together with Photoshop Elements.

This was a view from the path to the bridge looking over the old castle and lake. 

We made it castle level and it was almost time for our tour. The pic below is from a viewing area close to the gift shop and where the bus drops off. The red brick was imported from Northern Germany for the main entrance to the castle. The rest of the stone was from the immediate area of where the castle was built.

Below Cindy and the kids are about to walk into the main courtyard in preparation for the tour. 

Once again we were not allowed to take pictures inside the castle, unless they were out of the window. Below are some pictures from the Internet showing some of the interior. It was still impressive, but The Residence in Munich I think was more impressive. For me the inspiration and fantasy are from the outside and where this is located. I was actually a little disappointed with the interior. They worked on this for 17 years and still only completed about a third of the interior. Ludwig only lived in it a little over 100 days over a six month period. 

This was the private bedroom for Ludwig. They say 17 woodworkers took over four years just to carve the wood in this room. Most of that was the top part of the bed representing famous bell towers from Catholic churches around the world.

These last two are of the throne room. The one thing that was not there because they never got to it before he ran out of money? The throne. 

The tour was disappointing. They herd people like cattle through there very quickly. There are 70 people in each tour starting every five minutes. You can't really hear the official tour guide most of the time and he disinterested in the process anyway. We also had an Indian family with two small kids running wild in our group. The kid never shut up and the mom could care less. He only got a look from the guide when the kid slammed one of the 100+ year old windows closed with a loud thud. He was walking around on the wrong side of the barriers yelling and screaming. Thankfully we did not pay extra for this part since we had our castle pass. Another good thing about the tour guide was that he already had tickets for the interior tour so we did not have to stand in line. We got out of there after about thirty minutes. It was time to head back to Munich.

Above is a view from the castle. It is zoomed in to get the sailboats on the lake. 

This is the view from the castle to Marie's bridge. 

And one last panoramic from the castle overlooking his parents raggedy old place. 

We still had to walk down the hill to get to the bus. Cindy and I were both very happy to finally get back to the bus. This was a lot of physical activity for one day for us old people. The bus ride back was nice. The driver had cold beer available and the sun was setting. David and Katherine did not crash, they were wide awake playing on their tablets during the ride. We got back to central Munich around 7:45 that evening with only one problem. We had not eaten since lunch and we were hungry. The good news: It just happens that the tour meeting site was right next to the Hofbrauhaus. The bad news: It was Saturday night and a beautiful evening. No seats were to be found. We walked around the area for a while looking for options, finally walking upstairs at Hofbrauhaus and finding a table. By now this represents about how all of us felt.

We sat down and quickly realized the waiter was in the weeds and had little interest in us. We were not there for the experience, we just needed food before our drive back to Freising. After sitting there for fifteen minutes he finally took our order, then proceeded to walk over to an 10 top and start taking their order. I got up from the table walked over to him and told him to cancel our order, we are leaving. This was one of the best decisions of the day. We walked into a small takeout place and got the yummiest pork tenderloin wrap thingy ever.We paid for our take out order and drinks, payed out parking fee for the day and hit the autobahn back to home. Within a few minutes of arrival back home Cindy found Katherine in her bed and fading quickly. We made her take a quick shower in hopes in would help her sleep late Sunday morning. Everyone got cleaned up and we all got a good rest after our big adventure. 

This is an incredible area that I think is a must see. Put it on your bucket list if you have not been there already. I know that I won't forget about our day visiting Neuschwanstein Castle anytime soon. 

No teaser this time. I hope you enjoyed the pictures and descriptions.