Neuschwanstein Castle – Sounds very German….

M and I are friends with a couple here in Strasbourg and the four of us have been talking about going to Neuschwanstein Castle for a while. We finally were able to do it and our day started at a brisk 6:00AM.

Our friends picked us up in their car and drove us 4 hours to the castle. Once finally at the castle we bought our tickets and had lunch before our tour started.

Unlike Strasbourg there was a ton of fluffy snow. Which I couldn’t stop playing in. We first visited the small castle across from Neuschwanstein and it was cute. We got a tour with some quirky anecdotes about those that lived there. (Run away grooms who we suspect were secretly gay…)

After our tour of the smaller castle we had to head to the Neuschwanstein for our other tour. Neuschwanstein castle is famous for a couple reasons, one of those reasons is because it was the inspiration the Disney castle in California. There was about a 20 minute walk up a hill to where the castle rests. We could have taken a horse and carriage but the line was ridiculous and they were incredibly slow.

Once we got to the top we realized the front was under construction. So while we got some great photos they weren’t as amazing as we would have hoped. We took a tour of the castle and it was really magnificent. We didn’t get to see as much as we would have liked, but the castle is fairly new and in great shape. A couple reasons the castle looked so new, one of them being is was built in the 1800s, fairly new for a castle. Also, when the king moved in the castle was still working on renovations. It still isn’t completed! He died within a year after he moved into the castle in a very mysterious death. He was supposedly crazy and/or pissing people off.

On our way back down we stopped for fresh baked donuts which were incredible. We tried to take the horse and carriage down the hill but the lovely folks running the horse carriage just went down the hill and never came back up. They failed to mention that the horses were done for the day. So we got to wait an extra 30 minutes in the freezing tundra. I let them know I wasn’t thrilled. You don’t just leave a couple of west coast girls out in the snow. They literally left a group of people out in the snow…

Once we braved the snowy hill and got back to our car, we had a lovely 4 hour drive back into Strasbourg. We spent the evening warming our hands and feet.