Day 3: Fussen, Germany (Neuschwanstein Castle)

Day 3

Jeff: 
 I have always wanted to go to Neuschwanstein. Almost 40 years ago, when my Aunt Brenda was living in Germany, my Grandpa and Grandma Meikle visited her and went to Neuschwanstein. In Grandma's house, she has an embroidered picture of Neuschwanstein and I always liked looking at it.

We ate after touring Hohenschwangau (bratwurst is disgusting), and paid 2 euros for a swig of hot chocolate. It rained pretty hard for about 15 minutes, but it immediately cleared up, and we waited for a horse carriage to get up to Neuschwanstein.

 But we finally decided that because of the amount of people we probably wouldn’t get into a carriage without punching someone, so we started walking. The lady at the ticket office said it would take us 40 minutes…we made it in 14. Jeff likes walking fast, and wanted to see how fast we could go. I didn’t whine for too long. Because I saw THIS:

 

The castle was amazing. We saw the backside of it; you don’t see many pictures of that—it’s red!

After Jeff took this picture, he found a Polish penny and was pretty happy about it.

 We went inside, and while we were waiting for our tour, we tried to take pictures. There was a lady that kept posing ridiculously—she was older and would point her leg out, and place her arm on it…funny. She's not doing it as dramatically in this one, though. Yes, I am laughing at her.

 This is from the inside of the castle--that's the bridge where you can get the coolest view of the castle

Neuschwanstein has never been finished. King Ludwig was told that he wasn’t considered fit to rule, and soon after that he either killed himself or was murdered (they still haven't figured it out), they immediately quit working on the castle. But they kept it just how it was—everything is original. It’s really not terribly old. It was very cool inside. (Sorry the pictures are blurry and small, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so these are from the Internet).

Hallway

The throne room was pointless—didn’t even have a throne—but had an incredible view. The chandelier was awesome, too. It's kind of shaped like a giant crown and of course weighed tons.

There was a ballroom (above) with a stage for the orchestra and murals on the walls. The floor was wooden, and it was easy to imagine having a ball in there (after having seen so many Jane Austen movies and such).

His bedroom was dark, dark wood. His bed was intricately carved at the top. Ludwig liked to think that he was destined to rule because God had wanted it that way, and he was better than anybody else.The carvings indicated that. You'll hear some of his ridiculous stories on the 3rd day of our trip, at his OTHER castle, Linderhof. There were huge mirrors on either side of the bedroom…it was cool.

I also remember there being a room where it was his favorite place to read. It had columns that separated his reading space and chairs from the rest of the room. There was a table with the original tablecloth. It was blue and gold and had lots of little details. An amazing, intricately carved bookshelf, and more murals on the wall.

The door handles were shaped like swans (NeuSCHWANstein) and the next room was kept to look like a cave. It was just for 10 feet or so, but it looked sweet—like it was part of a mountain. Then there was a balcony-like garden right after that. Jeff and I just wanted to stay there. It overlooked the valley, and had some pretty plants and chairs.

Then they sent us down to the kitchens, where the servants stayed, mostly. There were huge old pans, and even butter molds! There were swans and things...

We walked down to the bridge to get that classic view of the castle. Most of the pictures people see are from this bridge. It connects two mountains, and below is a river and waterfall. Pretty cool. There were a couple of girls that were afraid of heights haha they were crouched down really low, and tried not to look down. They were walking slow and had terrified looks on their face:) Kinda funny. One wouldn’t go near the sides and tried to stay in the middle the whole time, another wouldn’t let go of the sides for a second. It was really windy, so I bet they felt like they were going to be blown over.

 We asked a lady to take our picture, and she got our heads—and not the castle. Then we kept doing the same thing...so we asked somebody else.

 Ding!

Jeff was cautious about who we chose because he could just visualize them raising the iPhone to take a picture, and dropping it off the bridge. Haha I was pointing at people and he would say, "No...no..." I think he was afraid I would do it a couple of times…it does make one nervous because it’s not completely impossible.

We walked back down, went to the car, and drove back. The drive went through the mountains and although it made me sick, it was beautiful. We passed Lake Plansee, which was gorgeous! It was quiet and rainy. The water was that same glowing green.

 We passed some elk, and Jeff pulled over and whistled at them haha they weren’t birds, I told him, but he definitely got their attention.

 An awesome old fortress in ruins--Ehrenberg.

 When we got back to our little hotel, dinner was being served, and was delicious. Then I worked on homework as much as I could—stayed up late, woke up really early.