Castles Castles Castles

The first picture is Newschwanstein, the second is Hohenshwangau. 

We arrived in Munich at about 6:45 in the morning, and headed to our hostel.  It wasn’t far away, so that was nice.  They were not prepared to let us check in until about 2:30 though – so we were a bit stuck.  We decided that we would head to Neuschwanstein – King Ludwig II’s castle in Fussen.  It was about a 2 hour train ride, but well worth it.  This is the castle that (supposedly) inspired Walt Disney when he was building Cinderella’s castle- and there were parts that certainly resembled it. The clouds seemed to clear just as we were getting to the area where the two castles were.  The smaller castle, Hohenschwangau, was the one we toured first.  It was a site that was the boyhood home of Ludwig the II.  I don’t remember much of the rest of the story, but it was cool to tour.  We saw Neuschwanstein next.  There were strange attributes about the whole building – the biggest being that it was never really finished.  Ludwig died and less than 6 weeks later, it was opened as a museum.  Ludwig was a bit “eccentric” as the tourguide told us, as was evident in the man made cave that connected to his bedroom.  It was strange.  Anyhow, we had a nice time and returned to Munich exhausted and ready for a shower and reaxation.