German Castles

We've seen a lot of castles in the last year, but none as unique as the two we toured in Germany.

The only way to see the interiors of either castle is by booking a guided tour. So we did just that. First we toured the Hohenschwangau castle, which was the childhood residence of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, then we hiked up to his second castle - Neuschwanstein - which he had constructed in later years.

The village below Hohenschwangau:

Then we headed up, up, up the mountain to see Neuschwanstein. We took a bus up halfway, then walked out onto a narrow bridge to get this photo:

The setting for this magnificent palace was almost more beautiful than the castle itself!

From the bridge, it was still about a 20-minute hike up the mountain to the castle entrance. Here is a view of the Hohenschwangau valley from the mid-point of our hike. You can see how far we had come up from the first castle:

Some more of our hike up to Neuschwanstein:

A quick rest for the little girls...

..then finally we made it!

Here's little Emily at the entrance (in pink):

And here we are inside the main gate:

After touring the inside of the castle, which was inexplicably ornate (sorry, we were not allowed to take photos inside), we indulged ourselves with a ride on a nearby Rodelbahn (Alpine slide). According to the kids, this was 'the most funnest thing' we did. Our 'sleds' were awfully reminiscent of a luge sled, except they were conveniently equipped with a hand-brake. We soon discovered it was way more exciting to just let the sleds go full speed! The kids had to ride with an adult so we traded off and went down 3 times each.

Here's a view of the Alpine Slide from the cable car (which we also enjoyed):

You can see it was quite the slide! It took a while to get towed up to the top and then several minutes sliding down. The curves really add speed!

And just in case we hadn't quite had our fill of thrill on these Alpine slopes, we also took turns riding the zip-line a few times.