22-June: Train ride to Füssen and the Castles

We left Budapest around 9pm on a 9hr night train to München...  It was a very rough ride.  The cabin had 6 beds, because we booked in advance, we had the permanent top bunks (the other 2 rows folded into beds from seats).  We had 3 Hungarians in our cabin that talked for a few hours, so we weren’t able to sleep then.  Neither of us slept much after that, a mix between the train noise and bumps along the way and anxiety, the trains around Budapest and Eastern Europe are known for having lots of theft problems.

We arrived in München around 6am and left shortly after to Buchloe, changed trains there towards our final destination, Füssen.  It was a cold, wet day… not the best for seeing the castles, but it was our only day there, so we made the best of it.  We were fortunate that the fog backed away some and we could see the beautiful Alps.  The train ride into the city was very nice.  We rode through a few small German towns in this rural area with small rolling hills.  Then, sort of all of a sudden, the Alps pop up, seemingly out of nowhere.

We arrived in Füssen around 9am and headed straight for the hostel to drop off our luggage.  The hostel we booked has 3 separate locations in the city, 2 separate hostels and 1 set of apartments.  We were told that we had been moved to the apartments, a little nicer and with our own shower and toilet!! We don’t have to share anymore like in Budapest!  The apartments were a little bit further outside the city center.  But, the city is only about 1km from one side to the other, and the main shopping/eating area covers only a few small streets.  So, it was not a problem.  The people that ran the hostel were very kind, and told us to drop our bags off where we were at (the main hostel) and they would take them and put them in our room at the apartments.

Next, we hopped on the bus and rode a few miles to the castles.  We bought tickets and headed to Schloss Hohenschwangau (Schloss = Castle).  They have the castle tour set up to be very efficient for when there can be 6000 tourists a day... maybe a little too efficient for us.  When you buy tickets, you are given a meeting time for a guided tour.  You are only allowed to go through with the guide, leaving little time to sit and look at the interior.  We were disappointed in this, especially for the price.  We prefer to take our time, look at a lot of the little details, and see the things most people tend to miss.

It was a “20 minute” hike up to the castle (took us less than 5).  We waited around in the courtyard for our guided tour.  It was very nice, a couple fountains, lots of flower gardens, a great view, but many tourists.  Inside the castle, there were pictures and sculptures and all sorts of decorations themed around swans (schwan = swan, makes sense...  The swan is the noble animal and symbol for this region dating back to the middle ages).  We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside either castle =(.

After the tour, we took a hike up to the main attraction, Schloss Neuschwanstein (New Swan Stone Castle).  It looked very far away from below in the city, but we took the hiking route anyways (the map said ~45 minute hike, but after the last one, we assumed this one was vastly exaggerated as well).  We were able to avoid some tourists, by taking the more difficult route, rather than walking along the road.  It was a very pleasant hike, but much shorter than we expected.

At the castle, there was a magnificent view of the Alps, the valley below, and the surrounding region.  It is no surprise that the castle was built in its location at the base of the Alps solely for the view.  We took the tour of the castle, and it was wild… the entire place seemed to come straight out of a fairy tale.  Every wall was painted with pictures of fairy tales from Richard Wagner operas and fanciful depictions of history of the region.  It was interesting to see that out of all the battle scenes on the walls, there was not a single drop of blood painted.

The castle looks much smaller in person, partly because it was built into the mountain and how the pictures you see are taken from the front.  Also, it was only a vacation home for the King.  We learned that Neuschwanstein was actually never completed.  It was under construction for 17 years and halted immediately upon the death of the King.  King Ludwig II was declared mentally unfit to rule and the next day sent to a castle near München, where he and his physician were found dead after taking a walk around a nearby lake.  The death is still a mystery… but he was probably killed by a mob of angry peasants, or at least that’s what we think =).

Nearby to the castle was a bridge over the gorge, we hiked there and took some pictures, it had a wonderful view of the castle (as you can see from the pictures).  We took the long way back to the city and waited for the bus to get back to Füssen.  We were very tired and stinky after riding on trains all night and walking around all day, so we went to the hotel, took showers and then headed out into the city to find something to eat.

We stopped inside a medieval themed restaurant to get dinner, because Meghan was craving some schnitzel!  It was nice to be back in Germany, where we can go through the entire meal without having to speak in English to the waiter/waitress.  Meghan ordered the schnitzel with fries, and I got trout with a baked potato.  We then realized that everyone wears a bib to eat here, brought to you by the waiter… so we donned the appropriate attire and waited for our food.  When the food arrived, I was shocked to find out that the baked potato came wrapped in tin foil… in the shape of a swan!  And, the fish came with the head and tail on (which Meghan hated, but I just found amusing)!  The food was excellent, somewhat expensive, but at least they made up for it with having good pleasant service and little extras to make the meal more enjoyable (such as the swan potato).

After dinner, we walked around Füssen some and stopped into a café to get coffee… but decided since we were very tired, lacking in sleep, and had to get up early to leave to get ice cream instead!  All of the little ice cream places here are actually gelato, very very good stuff, with all kinds of flavors.  Meghan went simple and got chocolate, but I had the pistachio flavor.  And, of course, it was excellent as well (and very cheap, 0.90€ a scoop, including waffle cone!).  Then, we headed back to the hotel and slept like rocks.