Füssen - Fairytale Castles

In the morning, less early than we'd hoped, we hopped a train to Füssen, the location of crazy Ludwig II's fairy-tale castles, notably Neuwanschtein. The trip turned out to be pretty expensive, as the train to Füssen wasn't cheap, and then we had to backtrack to Munich on our way to Regensburg in the evening. As we found out later, if we had waited just a little longer, until 9am to depart, we could have done the whole trip (to Füssen and on to Regensburg) for one €30 regional group day pass good for up to 5 adults. Mistakes like this are why we dislike the Central Europe Lonely Planet so much (this was a €50 mistake).

In any case, we arrived, and started off on our 20 minute walk to Hohenschwangau: a castle, town, and ticket center. However, the bad guidebook (text of which clearly was meant to be paired with a map that was cut), failed to indicate that it was a 20 minute walk from the ticket counter to the castle, and a 1 hour walk from the train station to the ticket center. Ugh.

From Fussen

Finally, we got our tickets and walked up to Neuwanschtien, Ludwig's castle, time appointment in hand. We ate lunch in the courtyard of the castle while we waited for our assigned tour. The castle was splendiferous. It took 56 carver-years just to do the woodwork on his bedroom. He managed to die (under mysterious circumstances) before he finished the castle, so there's a big shop on the uncompleted second floor. The kitchen was amazing. I want a kitchen that well equipped and large. There was an awesome great hall at the end of the tour, but it was crowded with our tour group there. No dancing for us.

From Fussen

From Fussen

From Fussen

The outside of the castle is the most iconic part, however. This is the castle that inspired the Disney castle. We got our best view of it from a bridge over a waterfall and behind the castle. The hike over was short and the views were great. Afterward, we headed a little farther along the path, and suddenly we were in a quiet wooded area, quite unlike the rest of the area. There were also nice views of the other castle from the trail.

From Fussen

From Fussen

From Fussen

We still had a little time until we need to be going to catch our train, so we popped up to Hohenschwangau, where Ludwig II grew up in. It was too late to go on a tour of the interior, but the outside was very nice, and less ostentatious than it's uphill neighbor. We caught the bus back to Füssen and got our ticket just in time to catch the next train to Regensburg.

From Fussen

From Fussen

At the train station in Munich, we saw this couple traveling by train and by bike. Awww. Maybe someday that's gonna be us... :-)

From Fussen

We got to Regensburg at around 8:30 at night, only to realize we had no map whatsoever. Oops. The tourist info was initially closed, but the guy was evidently just on break as it opened again while we were trying to figure out what to do. The nice man circled the hostels on a map he gave us and sent us on our way.

The place we wanted to stay was closed and we had to call the owner and wait around for 45 minutes for him to show up during half-time of the day's world cup semi-final match. We entertained ourselves walking around the lovely old town and having some ice cream. We ended up in a sweet studio apartment for cheap with a nice kitchen.