Yes, more. Are you tired of hearing about it yet? Because I’m not tired of talking about it. 😉 Last Friday, was spent at Neuschwanstein Castle. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
Or maybe you’ve heard of Sleeping Beauty? Her Disney Castle was inspired by Neuschwanstein Castle.
Its story is kind of eery actually. The castle itself was never finished. Its 17 year long construction halted when it’s King passed away, mysteriously of course. He was deemed “mentally unfit” to rule Bavaria and then arrested. His body was found in a lake 2 days later, along with his psychiatrists body. So you can actually tour the unfinished castle.Â
They milk that little detail for the tours. 😉 The inside is jaw dropingly gorgeous, but they ask that you don’t take photos while inside. Sorry guys. :/
For Josh and I, the real adventure started long before we arrived at the castle. The hauptbahnhof in Munich has like 36 train “gates” or something crazy like that. So obviously we spent the better half of the 30 minutes we allotted ourselves to find our train darting around like American headless chickens…and we missed our train. BUT not to worry… Germany in all its transportation inspired glory has a train to Fussen (sub city thingy that houses Neuschwanstein) every hour. So we indulged in some cheap yet delicious hot-dog-looking-sausage. Because Germans love sausage. ;P
So we arrived to Fussen an hour or so later than expected, where they have buses from the train station to the bottom of the mountain. The trains are quite accommodating though. And a good thing about winter is that coats and scarves make great on the go pillows. 😉
(lovely through the train glass window shot.;) )
Sidenote: I freaking LOVE mountains. How have I gone my whole life without knowing the beauty that is a REAL LIFE mountain?! (Sorry, Tennessee.) I am no photographer, but I am absolutely convinced that NO photograph could ever do the Alps justice. So please browse my photos knowing that they don’t even come close to the real thing.
THIS my friends, is the first time my husband had ever seen snow. And yes, a 23 year man experiencing snow for the first is just as adorable as when people bundle up their toddlers and send them out in it.
ANYWAYS. We got to the little ticket booth place (where you buy tickets to actually ENTER the castle) just to have the lady let us know that the last ride up the mountain had just left, the last tour started in less than 20 minutes, and it was a German tour…
So what do we do???
Well we bought tickets to the tour that we wouldn’t even understand and RAN our chubby American booties UP a freaking mountain… of course! (Another side note: my husband is nowhere near chubby, I think he actually has negative body fat, you get what I’m saying here.) 😉
I feel like this is an appropriate time to mention just how COLD a mountain range is for a Floridian in the winter time. I also think it is a good time to tell you that I had basically stripped down to just my long sleeve shirt and jeans while bolting up this mountain. Long jogs up icy mountain slopes in uncomfortable (but adorable) boots in March is certainly going on my next dating profile page. 😉 Its also a weird sensation to be sweating… yet your lungs burn from the thin cold air. hahaha. Ok, you get it.
I would like to brag that we arrived with ten minutes to spare, and the guards were nice enough to let us on the English tour. 🙂
Then, I had told myself that I was going to refrain from tacky touristy photos. Who was I kidding???
The walk back down was a nicer pace, and it was my first glimpse of a sunset in the mountains. I simply refuse to share some of the photos, they do little more than tarnish the glorious memories.
It was positively freezing by the time the sun had set by the way. We actually met 2 girls from West Palm Beach FL who took this photo for us! We met someone from Bradenton while we were at the castle as well. The world is a village.
Oh! Neuschwanstein has an older, uglier, brother! He sits on the lower and less attractive side of the mountain. You didn’t know? Don’t worry, nobody does.
I was going to mix some pictures from our other days in Munich on here, but I’d say that these are probably sufficiently crashing your browser already. So those will have to wait for another post. xo.
