King of the Castle

After Switzerland, we headed to Fussen for a night. It was a very cute little town but we stayed there primarily as a jumping off pad for seeing the King Ludwig castles in the morning. We stayed at Hotel Fantasia, which was a cute little hotel, and had dinner where we discovered König Ludwig Weissbier Hell, which was delicious. Naturally I stole a few of their coasters and I'm hoping we can find it in the states.

The next morning, we woke up bright and early and headed off to the castles as we had to pick up our reserved tickets by 8:20am. We started with Hohenschwangau, the older of the two castles and King Ludwig's family's holiday home. It was beautiful, especially the lake that surrounded it. Since it was pretty early, it was really nice to be able to take pictures before the crowds rolled in. The tour was good. I especially liked learning more about the family and some of the history. The 30 minutes were up before we knew it and so we then headed off to Neuschwanstein. 

Next it was off to Neuschwanstein but first we had to walk up this crazy long hill to get to it. Jerry and I definitely had to take a couple of breaks on the way up. 40 minutes later we arrived to the top and eventually it was time for our tour. This castle was very different from the first. It was designed by King Ludwig II but he died shortly after it was finished. It was definitely over the top inside (I so wish we could've taken pictures in there). Every inch was covered with some sort of decoration, detail, or extravagance. The man even had them build a faux cave room that he could sit in to listen to operas by Wagner. Bananas. 

Like the first tour, it was over before we knew it. Afterward, we took another uphill walk up to Mary's Bridge so that we could take a few cool pictures of the castle.   The bridge was packed and a pretty tight squeeze so we took a few shots then headed back downhill. We had an overpriced lunch then it was time to head off to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. More on that tomorrow!