Bavarian Castles

31 May and 1 June - Days 77 and 78

 

Went to see Men in Black 3. Left Prague and drove to Fussen in Germany. Yeah, that was pretty much it.

 

2 June - Day 79

Today we woke up early and went to visit the castles Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein, the castles occupied by the Bavarian monarchy until they all died and everything got turned into museums.

We first visited Hohenschangau, the older of the two. You're only allowed to visit the castles with a guided tour so we did that. That one was pretty nice looking.

The area around the castles is also very picturesque, if a little bit touristy. The lake was very clear and there were some good views.

 

We had a two hour gap in between our tour of the two castles so we walked up the hill to Neuschwanstein and looked at the scenery they have up there, like the Marion bridge and a waterfall.

Neuschwanstein is the cooler of the two castles both inside and out, although it is still under construction. It started being built in the 19th century but the king at the time (I think it was Ludwig, or Otto, or maybe Leopold, I don't really know) died.

According to our guide, it was built in a gothic style. Or maybe classical. Or renaissance (again, I have no idea). Regardless, it was very impressive and very stylish. Highlights include the king's extremely ornate bed canopy and also his toilet, which was just a leather armchair with a hole cut in the bottom.

Also, Wagner used to hang out there a lot so there was also a singing hall and plenty of pianos. They had a phone there too, which looked really out of place but was used by the king everyday to call his mum.

Unfortunately, you're not allowed to take photos inside the castle itself so here are some photos of swanlings.

Although we were allowed to take photos of the royal kitchen, which was pretty neat.

After finishing up at the castles, we went to Tegelberg which is a tall mountain nearby. It's used by skiiers in the winter and hang gliders and paragliders in summer, so we watched a couple of them jump off the edge. People also do lots of hiking there.

The cable car ride up takes about 10 minutes, so it's pretty high up. Dad left me behind on the way down so he had to wait around at the bottom. Ha.

3 June - Day 80

Left Fussen and headed towards Stuttgart via Rothenberg.

 

Rothenberg is a small medieval town and looks a bit like this.

We didn't do too much there and then we left.

After a bit more driving, we arrived in Stuttgart, went for lunch and then walked to the Porsche museum.

The museum was cool. They had a lot of car stuff there and the history of the whole Porsche thing.

I've been also told to mention that the Porsche 911 was originally to be named the 901 but Peugeot already had dibs on the X0X naming format so Porsche decided to change into the United States emergency number instead.

Afterwards, we crossed the road to look at the Porsche showroom, which I guess is kinda like the gift shop if you have 150,000 Euros to spend on souvenirs.