Day 26: Royal flex - a castle to retreat from your castle

How is it possible that the end of our European vacation is almost here?! It went so fast! 

Once again, we had an early morning, as we needed to catch a train, ride an hour, switch trains, ride another hour, and then catch a bus to make it to a ticket office by 11:55am. So, we did our usual get-ready routine, grabbed our morning coffee, and then headed to the train station. It was pouring rain when we arrived in Füssen (southern Bavaria). Luckily, we have been carrying our trusty umbrellas with us every day for the extreme sun and for the rain! We could see one of the castles covered in fog in the distance. Cool!

Not Disneyland

We got our tickets to the two castle tours and then stopped at a restaurant for a quick bite. We had schnitzel (which only Sherri ordered, since the rest of us are sick of it), sausage, and pretzels. Again. Did I mention that we’re missing pizza? I can see why some Germans are cranky….

The best German cuisine so far...

Contrary to Julie Andrews' song, they don't serve schnitzel with noodles!

After lunch we walked up a big hill to our first castle: Hohenschwangau. King Maximilian II of Bavaria built the castle.  It was his official summer and hunting residence. Can you imagine having a massive castle as your 'summer home'?? It’s a really cool place with hidden doors and passageways (Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures in this castle or the next castle). 

Anyway, When Maximilian died, Ludwig II, his son, succeeded him as king. Ludwig thought, "Hey, this summer castle is not quite big enough....I should build another castle as a retreat from this castle!" And thus was born Neuschwanstein Castle, our next stop. We got on a bus to go up another big hill to see Neuschwanstein. At the top of the hill, there were two paths: one to the castle and one to a bridge. We almost ditched the bridge path, as our tour was starting soon, but we stopped another tourist and asked him how far the bridge was and he said it was only two minutes away. We asked him if it was worth going to and he said it was. So, we trekked over there. Man are we glad we did! Such amazing views, and there was an awesome fog surrounding the castle. It was quite surreal!  

First Order of the Colored Hummel Umbrellas

After the bridge, we headed over to the castle. Our girls rightfully exclaimed, “What a flex!” when we got inside. Intricate carvings, massive hallways, and lots of gold. The castle was under construction for about 19 years when Ludwig died. He only slept 11 nights in the castle! He never married, so this castle was essentially his bachelor pad. Weird, I could not find a futon or a neon beer sign anywhere. Each room in the unfinished castle paid homage to a different opera by Richard Wagner. Construction continues on the castle a full 150 years later!

We happened upon a balcony as we were leaving, and found some of the most amazing views of the day. Crazy that Ludwig wanted this as a retreat all for himself (and his dozens of servants, of course). As we walked the halls of the great castle, I could hear the ghost of Ludwig saying, ”Sometimes I just need to get away from my super flex castle….and retreat to my other super flex castle.” 

"Aw, how cute, look at my other castle and all of my peasants!" - Ludwig II (unverified)

After the tour, we took a horse carriage ride down the hill. Our excuse - "we shouldn't walk downhill on the slippery asphalt, we might fall!"  Real reason? Maybe we're tired of walking? 

We then caught the bus (then train, then next train) back to Munich. As we were on our last train for the day, Sherri and I started talking about the next day. It was really supposed to be a travel day to London, chill out in the airport hotel, and then fly back to the US the next day. But, come on….after this trip it seemed impossible to just sit around for several hours, so we got online and started looking for theatre tickets for the next night. We saw that Lion King had tickets - 8 left in the entire theatre, and five of them were together. It was meant to be! So, we booked the tickets as we were winding down our last train ride for the day. 

For dinner, we all agreed we were schnitzeled out, so I found an Italian restaurant near the train station, and it turned out to be a great choice, as the food was fantastic! Sorry Germany. 

Fine German-ish cuisine.

We walked the mile back to our hotel, packed up, played some Monopoly Deal, and then turned in for the night.