While we had to start early that day, we still got to enjoy a good breakfast at 07:00 sharp when it opened:
This day was pretty full due to how hard it is to get to Hohenschwangau & Neuschwanstein and how regulated it is. We had to get up around 06:30, be in the car by 07:40 and go pick up our reserved ticket by 08:00 when they opened, for our 09:15 tour (yes, they want you to be there an hour early, a huge waste of time). After the first castle, we had to again wait 45 for our next reserved tour at 11:15 because they refused to give us an earlier reservation if we did both castles back to back (in hindsight we should have made 2 reservations, one with each of our 2 names).
Then, to add to the annoyance, they disallowed pictures in both castles, and the 2nd one I really wasn't able to take pictures, despite looking at ways to do so, so I added a few stock photos I found on the internet. Now, both castles were very nice, especially Neuschwanstein. They were owned by the same family and Neuschwanstein was built to replace the old castle. Now, to be fair both castles were very impressive, and that's likely why they are so popular, but it took a lot of planning and dealing with BS to be able to see them. Jennifer really did a lot of work to line them up, and we had to hurry up and wait multiple times to deal with them.
i09*
After the first castle, we went to see the 2nd. That was a line for a bus for a ride up to a hike (45mn or so)
we first went to the bridge for a great view
Neuschwanstein does indeed look good
stock pictures from the internet
Once we were finally down with both castles, which again were very nice, but burned a lot of time, we went to TegelbergBahn, a small ski resort, to try luge for our first time. So luge is fun, but you only control your speed, no steering and no passing. Compared to luge in New Zealand where you're on a track and you can steer and pass around people (a lot more fun). So,if you haven't done the NZ luge, the German one is fun. If you have done the NZ one, the German/Austrian one is sub par :)
meuh!
and then down
From there, we drove to Wieskirche Church, in the middle of nowehter, but because it has a weeping statue of Jesus in the past, and many pilgrims that went there, they built a super nice church to host the statue, and I do mean super nice:
doesn't look like much from the outside
but damn is it nice inside
There was a nice bridge on the way after that, where we stopped briefly for pictures, as well as a small store just on the other side:
And our next destination was Oberammergau, a small town known for the multitude of mural paintings on people's houses:
small church there too, also beautiful
Next on the route was Linderhof Castle, the castle where the kind who built Neuschwanstein, lived while Neuschwanstein was being built, and as a single person castle, it's not bad at all :)
After the supposed no pictures guided castle tour, we went to see the rest of the castle grounds, which weren't crappy either:
the guy built his own grotto with water, boat, and mural...
he also built a turkish like building and room
very nice
And no, the day was not over yet, we still had time for Ettal Monastery, which thankfully closed later, and at the risk of repeating myself, was also super nice:
And then it was finally time to drive back, a 1H drive we did through the Austrian side for mountain and lake views:
Damn, this was a long day, but we sure saw a lot :)
