Saturday
Today was the day I was most looking forward to- the tour of Schloss Neuschwanstein, an amazing castle! Before our tour left, we wanted to go see the famous giant market (Viktualienmarkt) when it was actually open- since it was Easter weekend, everything was closed of course except on Saturday, the day we were not even going to be in the city! The market was pretty large and organized- all the meat was in one section, the cheeses in another, fruit, herb, flowers etc all together in their respective areas. After wandering a little while over there, we headed over to the train station to meet up with the tour. I loved the castle, but the tour ended up being terrible for a bunch of reasons. #1- there were 60 people. #2- we had to wait for a wicked long time for everyone #3- after we were finally allowed to go, we had to RUN everywhere. They made us wait until about 5 minutes before the train left til they let us on to try and find a seat. We had to speedily walk up the hill to get to our tour. We had to sprint right into the entrance to get in line for the castle tour. The tour was designed to go right thru the castle at a fast pace. We went to a bridge over a gorge to get a good view of the castle- and had to run back down the mountain to meet back up with the group to catch the train. Overall, it was over rushed and I was not a happy camper, especially since we were waiting for 45 minutes in Füssen (the town) for no apparent reason.
Anyway, I will now highlight the good parts of the tour. How about the castle itself?
There is a lake nearby...
And it was in the Alps...
This was the gorge over which there was a bridge...
I loved the castle- but if I go back I will NOT take Radius tours, and neither should you. You can do the same thing we did, but spend more time at the castle and enjoy the view- all you need to do is check out a book about Mad King Ludwig and go down by the lake. By the way, Ludwig was pretty strange- he was very into swans; he was engaged to his cousin (they never married); he had a fake grotto built behind his bedroom, and he was found dead in a lake with another man (who was his doctor who was interviewing Ludwig to find out if he was mentally fit to rule). Anyway, that castle came out great- thanks, Ludwig!
Pondering the Germany countryside- on the way back to Munich, an older lady sat with us. She yelled at me and Corey (separately! while the other was in the ladies room) not to put our feet on the seat! We were in Germany now, not at home!
