Fussen Day 2 - King's Castle Day

Writing this after a beautiful sunny day beneath the Alps, spent at Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein Castles, the first home of King Ludwig I and the second of his son, King Ludwig II who only lived a short time at his own designed Neuschwanstein before the government officials came to meet him with a psychiatrist and took him away.  Strangely, he was found drowned in a lake the next day.  Mystery! to this day.  Certainly sound like Mad King Ludwig, as he is known, was bumped off.

We rode in (2 miles from hotel) and parked.  Took our ticket reservation (provided by the hotel) and picked up our tickets.  For each castle, you are assigned a time for the English speaking tour.  One goes to Hohenschwangau first, a short "10 minute walk" - straight up into heaven.  Panting and thinking, "here were are",  we were encountered with oodles of steps to get up into the castle rooms.  No photos allowed in either castle - so, can't provide an inside peek.

One walks downhill (hooray!) back to the castle grounds where one can either ride a shuttle bus or take a horse and carriage.  It was recommended by our hotel (and Rick) that we take bus up and horses down.  For one thing, the bus can go higher and is cheaper (1.80 euro, horses 6 euro) and the bus drops one off at St. Mary's Bridge where one can walk across the valley and get a wonderful photo of Neuschwanstein.   I had no intention of doing it and just sent Jim.  However, I managed to creep inch by inch and these are my photos you will see!!!  Can't believe I did it!

After the bridge, one walks downhill (very steep) to the castle, takes the tour after climbing up hundreds of steps, then walks downhill to the horses and takes a peaceful ride down.  Our driver whistled to his horses, before he even left, basically telling them it was time to go to work.  Here and there on the way down, he'd give them a whistle or two.  He also cursed at folks who walked in front of the horses (fools I'd day) and let out a loud burp!  Quite the character.

After arrival at the bottom of the hill - time for beer and white sausages!!   Later we drove back to the hotel.
Now, the expected storms that are going across Europe have arrived.  Raining with the following prediction for tomorrow:  Evening light rain followed by a mix of rain and snow overnight. Low 34F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precip 80%.  We brought warm clothes, but what I brought wasn't quite that warm, so up in the hills I bought a fleece jacket for 25 euros.  It's very nice and will keep me warm tonight and tomorrow.  This is what the locals call basically "the final  cold day  of winter".  Jim talked to woman at the truck stop who made her food and we also talked to the fellow here at the hotel - and they both told us the same story.


So, we are getting ready to go eat.  We have been sitting in this very nice room since we got back, just had a little bottle of Franconian wine we bought in Rothenburg.  Now we will look at restaurant next door, or else return to our own hotel restaurant where we ate last night.  No need to walk around in pouring rain.


We decided to go next door to dinner and it was fabulous.  Comfort food on a cold rainy night.  See photos.  Wi-fi connection at night is the pits, I think their bandwidth is poor for so many users.  We are having an early evening, it's 8:45 pm to prepare for tomorrow.