When we were planning our trip to Germany, I said that the one thing I wanted to do was see Schloss Neuschwanstein (NOY-sh-Van-Shtein) which is the castle built by King Ludwig II and the Walt Disney World castle was modeled after. Well, check that off the list! On Monday Ryan and I did the 5 hour train ride to Hohenschwangau to visit the two castles (Schloss Hohenschwangau is where Lugwig actually lived as a child). If you want to read more about the castles and Ludwig, check out the website below. Ludwig was born in 1845 and was the king of Bavaria from 1864-1886 when he died. He was actually kind of an insane king. "I want to remain an eternal mystery to myself and others" is one of his famous quotes.

http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/palace/index.htm

Our day trip began at 4:45am as we got our day packs ready to catch the bus at 5:13. It was a very cold morning and everything was pitch black. I remember looking up at the sky and it was crystal clear...I have never seen Orion that vividly before. After catching the bus to a nearby town, making four train transfers and dealing with a 1 hour delay, we arrived in Füssen around 11:00. Füssen is the closest stop on the rail network to the small town of Hohenschwangau where the 2 castles are located. We hopped on one more bus which took us the rest of the way. When we stepped off the bus, I was almost like you were at Walt Disney World. There were tour busses and people EVERYWHERE! Neuschwanstein is the most visited castle in Europe and also a stop on all Romantic Road tours (the Romantic Road is a famous castle rout in Germany). Even with the abundance of people, it was hard not to gasp at the beauty of the landscape around us. There were the Bavarian Alps in the distance, green patchwork farms on the left, and tree lines lakes on the right. The town of Hohenschwangau is itself high in the mountains but to reach the castles, you had to climb even higher.

There was a single road leading up to each of the two castles. We decided first to visit Schloss Hohenschwangau. The castle was...OK. It was a small little castle but nothing too impressive. I found the best part of climbing to the top of the castle was observing the view of the surrounding area. We headed back down the hill and prepared for the longer, and steeper climb to Neuschwanstein. It was a solid walk which was eased by the incredible views during the entire assent. The biggest issue for Ryan was the fact that you have to share the road with horses pulling carriages of lazy tourists up and down the hill. Let's just say these horses did not have those convenient poop catchers behind them and you had to dodge s*** bombs the entire way.

Once we made it to the top, we stopped for a quick water and carrot break before heading into the grounds. There was a nice lookout bridge where you could stand to take pictures. Since Oktober Fest has begun, there were people wearing Lederhosen all over the place. We found this older man named George wearing a full German get-up to take our picture.

Funny side note for everyone at Sara & Alex's wedding: When I was getting my picture taken with George, Ryan said, "Say Cheese!" George then shouted out "WHISKEY!"

Schloss Neuschwanstein did in fact look pretty magical. From a distance, it does not look that big but what you don't realize is that much of the castle is tucked away in the trees and built around the landscape itself. As you walk around the grounds, each side provides a new view and you find more towers...it's actually pretty cool how it's built. I know I have said it before, but the views from the castle is spectacular. After spending some time enjoying the scenery, we headed back down the hill, dogged more poop mines, and hopped back on the bus to Füssen (we didn't want to stay in Hohenswangau because it was way too touristy).

In Füssen, it was time for lunch. We found a Metzger (butcher) where Ryan had a big hot lunch of Leberkase, eggs, and fried potatoes (almost like a German version of the hangover hero). We then hit up the Netto market discount for some alcohol to enjoy as we walked the streets. Since the selection of beer was not that great, we instead get a bottle of riesling sekt (sparking white wine) which we drank out of paper cups from a coffee shop. After two hours of exploring the shops and parks in Füssen, we jumped back on a train to head home. This is where the horrible part of the day began.

We left Füssen at 4:00pm and should have arrived home in our apartment at 8:00....we didn't get home until 11:30. All was running smoothly until we had to catch a train in Plochingen to Nürtingen...our last stop before the bus home. What started as a 20min delay became a 45 minute delay which meant that when we arrived in Nürtingen, we missed our bus home. This was fine because I recorded 3 alternate train/bus schedules to get us to Grotzingen in case something was not running on time. According to the Bahn schedule, the next bus home was to arrive 40 minutes later. The bus never came.

It was now dark and we pretty much had no idea where we were. We walked up to a gas station but being out in the country, no one spoke enough English to understand that we were lost and needed to know how to get home. We hung out at the bus station a little longer until some younger people were able to help us. The bus we were supposed to take to Grotzingen was done for the night so we had no idea how to get home. As per the instructions of our new friends and the bus driver, we hopped on a bus and had to catch a transfer at station X. We arrived at station X and of course, by this time at night, the bus ran every one hour. We had another 45 minute wait for bus Y to come. We still didn't know what stop to get off at and this bus driver did not speak English very well. Luckily, someone near the front of the bus heard us struggling and stood up yelled English! A nice woman immediately came forth and translated for us. We figured out that this bus could get us ~1km from Grotzingen and the driver would just tell us when to get off.

By this point, we had run out of food, Ryan was already hung over from the wine in the afternoon, and we had to deal with bumpy winding roads of the country. The ride felt like eternity until finally, the driver stopped at a corner, pointed down the road, and said, GO THERE. We hopped off the bus and started walking blindly. Luckily, within about 5 seconds we recognized we were on the main road leading into Grotzingen and after a brisk 5 minute walk, we were home.

It was probably one of the most stressful and scary experiences yet but in hindsight, the rest of the day was so picturesque and wonderful I don't even care. It's all part of the experience.