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| View from the train |
After figuring out our transport options we headed off to Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles by train through rolling green hills, views of the alps and German villages with an awesome amount of solar panels dotted on rooftops.
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| Hohenschwangau Castle |
We befriended a girl from Hong Kong who was travelling by herself for five days in Germany, she was snapping away with an SLR and a smaller digital camera, she was also heading to Rothenburg ob der Tauber the next day like us.
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Hohenschwangau Castle
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| View of Neuschwanstein castle from Hohenschwangau castle | | | | | | | | | | | |
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We arrived at Hohenschwangau to pick up our tickets, managed to get on an earlier tour time (sometimes it does help to pay a bit extra to reserve tickets!) and rushed up to the egg yolk colored Hohenschwangau castle, it was a home of King Maximillian and his family, the 18th century opulence was still plain to see, the mural paintings on every surface have been carefully looked after.
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| Scenery from Hohenschwangau castle |
After our tour, we began the hike up to Neuschwanstein castle, forgoing the bus up the hill, or adding our weight to the poor Clydesdales pulling carts full of people up the hill. We stopped half way for our previously bought strawberries and took in the view of the Bavarian countryside.
Everything is ever so green, with small villages dotting the landscape in between pastureland, it was a pretty special view to look over all of that and then look behind you at the Alps, dressed in snow. The other side of the Castle's view was just as spectacular, looking out over a lake and the Alps.
We toured Neuschwanstein, which is a pretty sad story in itself, never completed. Six weeks after King Ludwig's death (which came a day after the Government had declared him mentally ill and unfit to rule), the castle was opened as a museum.
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| In front of Neuschwanstein Castle |
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| Inside the courtyard of Neuschwanstein, waiting for our tour |
The amount of German money piled in to Neuschwanstein must have been enormous, his bedroom alone kept a team of four woodcarvers busy for four years, the wood sculpture above his bed depicted churches with intricately detailed spires, just amazing!
After the tour finished we headed back down the hill to catch the bus back to the train station and the train back to Munich.
We overheard one of the guides telling his group where the beat Bavarian food and beer was, at the Augustiner brewery house, where all the locals go. So we walked over on our return, managed to find it, and entered the busy beer hall, where 1L tankards of beer are the norm, pretzels adorn the tables and the conversation was rowdy! A chef was walking by as we came in, saw our confused faces, asked us something in German and upon our 'ahhhhh' he said 'English?!!!' with an amused face and led us to a table. The waitress was a no-nonsense, matronly type who was not impressed by the chef's interruptions to her job! I struggled lifting my 0.5L beer with one arm, she would reach two 1L tankards across a table and wait impatiently for the blokes on the table to notice, decide whose it was and relieve her of the beer - impressive strength!
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| And these were only the 0.5L pots! |
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| Quite a bit of beer! |
On wandering home, we passed a popular ice-cream spot and grabbed a yummy cinnamon flavor, it tasted like gingerbread dough, yummo!!!
Day two out!
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I love that pic of you with the beer! We should get that blown up for the wall :)
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