We left early Thursday, morning and headed out taking the Autobahn in Germany for most of the trip. For much of the drive there was no speed limit which is so foreign to me. There were cars speeding around everywhere. There was a caravan of like 25 Porshe cars along the way as well and that was really cool to see. Thursday was a holiday for Germans and in every town we drove through we saw men and women dressed in formal lederhosen drinking in various biergartens or surround a church. Here are a couple pictures.
We arrived on Thursday in a city called Fussen where the Neuschwanstein Castle is located. We met our friends Martin and Regina Rommler there. The city is at the base of the Alps and is just stunning. The Castle itself is magnificent! It's the castle that Walt Disney was inspired by when creating the Disney Castle for his theme park. Here are a couple pictures of the outside of the castle:
I won't bore you with a ton of history surrounding the castle, but it's relatively new by castle standards, being built in the late 1800s. King Ludwig II of Bavaria was a little nutso and was not happy about the recent shift in power within Germany rendering him essentially powerless. He decided to build a giant ornate castle (funded by himself) and live in it for the rest of his days totally alone. He wouldn't let anyone else inside the castle, not even his wife or mothers. They resided in another castle across the forest. Here's a picture of that.
He only resided in Neuschwanstein for less than a year before he was arrested for insanity charges and found dead shortly after that (for reasons unknown). The castle is unfinished based on his plans. The whole story is so interesting. We went on a tour of the inside with an English tour guide, but we were unable to take any pictures. Here's a wiki-link of the castle though and there are some pictures of the inside there.
Here are some more pictures of the outside:
View from a window of the castle looking out:
Martin, Regina, Ron, Ash, and Cosette on the balcony:
It was a half hour walk up hill to the castle and the kids did a great job. After the castle tour we walked over to this freaky bridge everyone (except me) really wanted to walk on.
I inched my way onto the bridge to take this sweet pic of the castle:
Then scurried off and watched in horror as everyone else loaded onto that thing and actually enjoyed teetering on the edge of death. No thank you.
Here are a couple pictures Ron took of the kids on the bridge:
After leaving the castle we went to a cute play ground and watched the kids run around. It was surreal watching them play at the base of the Alps with the castle in the background.
Afterwards we drove to Hopfen and had dinner at a cute restaurant with a great view of the mountains.
The kiddos fell asleep as soon as we got into the car. :)
Martin and Regina set us up in an actual apartment for the weekend! It was located just above their mother's living quarters. It was huge! Complete with two bedrooms, bathroom, living room, kitchen, and dining area. It was a the lap of luxury compared to our little space in Austria. We had a couple beers with Martin and Regina after the kiddos passed out, then prepared for our busy day in Stuttgart on Friday. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment