Easter Tourism, ja! - Part 3

H said the last time he was in Deutschland was 10 years ago and he didn't get to go to Neuschwanstein so he wanted to hit that this time around. I warned him that I'd been told that the castle is undergoing restoration and is partially covered in scaffolding. He said he was willing to run that risk and so we boarded a train to Fuessen and then a bus to Schwangau to see THE castle of Germany!

The further away from the city we got, the more snow we saw.

Okay, as much as I hate the snow (and I do), when you see it like this and there are great whopping mountains to boot, it IS really impressive.

 This Chinese restaurant in Schwangau looks like a snow lodge!

To my absolute amusement and H's horror, the side of the castle facing Schwangau is COMPLETELY covered in scaffolding. Apparently it's supposed to be finished in 2013 so visitors might want to keep this in mind. 

It looks like this from the village. I couldn't stop laughing. 

If you are going to New Swan Rock (heh), I highly recommend booking a ticket. We intended to do this but found out bookings close 3pm the day before your visit and so had to wait in the queue. It moves pretty fast but by the time we made it to the kasse at around quarter to 1, the earliest tour we could get was at 4PM!!! Also, standing in the queue was kinda hazardous due snow falling from various overhanging ledges. 

So having about 3 hours to kill in Schwangau, we decided to have a poke around the super-cute village! There are actually two castles in Schwangau - the other is the Schloss Hohenschwangaul. Unlike Neuschwanstein, this was actually inhabited by people - it was built by Ludwig's dad and one of his childhood homes. 

Although dwarfed by Neuschwanstein, Hohenschwangau is also quite impressive

Some of the decorations

There was a lot of ice and snow up there meaning I had twice as many things to avoid - the ice and various snowballs being lobbed at me. 

The view from Hohenschwangau

It's all so pretty! I can't handle it!!!

Alpine lake

You can take a horse-drawn carriage to the castle from the ticket booth, but don't. It's seriously like a 10minute walk. This is the path coming down from the castle. 

Village maypole!

I think walking around, taking photos, and piffing and dodging snowballs took about an hour so after a lunch of bratwurst and currywurst (H's comment - this is amazing!) we decided to walk up to the castle. Another note to visitors, in addition to a horse-drawn carriage, there is usually a shuttlebus that runs from Schwangau up to the castle. This bus does not run there there is snow and ice because the road is quite steep. Also, the map says the walk takes about 50 minutes. It doesn't - I reckon even for dodging the other walkers and stopping for photos, it took about 30 mins. 

It looks like Disneyland!

The view of the fields from the forecourt

Kekeke

Entrance to the castle courtyard

Pooey had said that the best view of the castle comes from the Marienbruecke across the valley. The path from the castle to the bridge was actually blocked off by the scaffolding surrounding the castle, I'm guessing due to risks of falling masonry :( This didn't seem to stop many people from climbing the gate that had variations of *Verboten!* and *No Trespassing* from climbing the fence and going for the bridge but I was too chicken. 

So we settled with looking at the bridge from the courtyard. This pic is a Where's Wally version of looking at the bridge :P Dammit, we could see people on the bridge as well!

The tour itself was kinda underwhelming. We couldn't really hear the guide but it's the only way to get inside the castle to have a look around. I reckon we could have taken one of the earlier non-English tours but...oh well. But the exit from the tour took us back to where the gate blocking the Marienbruecke was...and after looking at each other, we decided to engage in an act of civil disobedience by climbing it (keep in mind there was a CLIFF on the other side!) and making our way up the verboten path! Eventually, we made it to a second gate with the same old *Achtung! Verboten!* as a pair of small Asian girls climbed over it. They instructed us that, yes, this was the only path was the bridge. So we climbed that as well! This path was actually quite icy and I fully understood why it was blocked off in an attempt to stop foolhardy tourists from venturing up there. Alas, it was all in vain. 

But we were rewarded by this wonderful view!

Two (out of many) naughty tourists!

The view from the bridge of the waterfall and valley below...hmmm...

Naturally the walk back down was kinda tricky for me and my gammy leg so similar to the time he forced me to go bush walking, I ended up having to hang off H's back for a few sections to stop me from pokkai'ing on the ice. 

But on the walk down, we got this magnificent view of Hohenschwangau again!

For people who actually want to know how to get to Neuschwanstein, I recommend reading Pooey's entry on her visit. I know I figured out how to get there by reading her entry! And I'd like to reiterate her advice of "Follow the Asians!", just not me :P