After not one but three "good morning" calls around 6:00 am, I struggled out of bed after a few minutes (need to get more sleep!) to get breakfast and make it to the bus by our 7:30 am departure time (hope we don't have many other early days like this!). It was about a 1.5 hour drive through the Bavarian countryside to the point where we got our first view of the model for Disney's Cinderella castle, Neuschwanstein (new swan on the stone), perched on the hillside.
It is necessary to arrive an hour ahead of the reserved entrance time to pick up tickets and make your way up the hill to the castle. We took the easy way up--the castle's bus--and were dropped off just below Marienbrucke, Mary's bridge, a 5-minute hike up the hill with an unbeatable view.
Okay, fudging it a bit because this photo is from a trip there last September--with today's more crowded visit I didn't get a chance to take this shot. As you can see below, though, the weater was much nicer today!
While you can look out from lower vantage points to a vista of villages and lakes, the view from the bridge also includes the castle. The bridge is suspended over a waterfall and its wooden planks are quite...flexible. But the hike is definitely worth the view.
We had plenty of time to get back down to the castle to meet up with those coming up on the second bus, and even more leisure time to move to the castle's interior courtyard to wait for our appointed entry time and for our tour number to show up on the electronic signboard. The tour numbers are displayed for a five-minute window, and if you don't get through the turnstile while your number is displayed, you are out of luck!
Another picture from the previous trip--the upper courtyard.
The tour takes you past servants quarters on the first floor and then up seventy-some-odd stairs to the third floor rooms used as living quarters (including throne room) by King Ludwig II. Over the course of the tour you traverse more than 300 stairs. Unfortunately photos are not allowed inside the castle, but are included on the castle web site:
The rooms, rather gaudy, gilded and dark, are themed on several of Wagner's operas: Tristan and Isolde, Lohengrin, Tannhauser, and Percival. On the fourth floor is the Singers' Hall, and of course Patsy got permission for us to perform: Viel Gluck. Swans are also a theme throughout, with everything from painted swans to porcelain swans to swan door handles and even a swan faucet on the kitchen sink.
On the way down the stairs to the kitchen, you pass by the unfinished second floor. The castle was never finished. Ludwig, 6 feet tall and a good swimmer, died mysteriously in three feet of water in a lake along with his psychiatric docter, one day after being declared mentally incompetent by the government. He had lived in the palace only 172 days.
I think I'll write up our afternoon activities tomorrow as we head to Salzburg, since tonight I also need to pack for departure and once again it is late.
16796 steps; 6.9 miles
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