bavaria

Neuschwanstein Castle

On our third day in Germany, we set our alarms for 6 am to get to Neuschwanstein Castle bright and early (well, rainy and early in our case). It's only a 90 minute drive from Munich, but we read that tickets to tour the inside of the castle were only available at the ticket booth the day of. The ticket booth opened at 8 am and when we arrived at 8:30, there was already an hour-long line to purchase tickets.

We ended up buying tickets to see both Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castles since they were only a 15 minute walk from each other.

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Lessons Learned

We learned that the walk up the hill to Neuschwanstein Castle is actually pretty steep. I was only slightly embarrassed by the older women walking up the hill faster than me. I clearly need to do more cardio.

Sometimes the scenery outside the castle is more interesting than what's inside. It was neat walking through the different rooms of both castles and learning about King Ludwig II (that dude was crazy but also very much ahead of his time). But, the tours were each only 30 minutes long and we saw just a fraction of the castles. We spent more time waiting in line for the tickets and tours than actually being on the tours themselves. Instead, one of my favorite memories was walking across Marienbrucke (Queen Mary's Bridge). The wooden footbridge crosses a gorge behind Neuschwanstein Castle, and the view of the castle from the bridge was even better than the view closeup. It looked straight out of a fairytale book.

I remember nervously stepping onto the wooden planks of the bridge. It was drizzling and I didn't want to slip and fall to a grisly death. Some of the planks would teeter slightly as I stepped on them. As I slowly inched my way across the bridge, I called out to Steve, who was way ahead of me. A German man turned to me and said, "Don't worry. This is German engineering. The best in the world." We all had a good laugh, and his words helped me pick up my pace.

I did ask our guide one question while touring Hohenschwangau Castle. I asked if the castles were greatly damaged during WWII. He said no because Germany didn't really get attacked until the end of WWII. I so badly wanted to ask him a million more questions about Germany's history and his perspective on the world wars, but I politely refrained.

Hotel Müller had a killer breakfast buffet while we waited for the Neuschwanstein tour to start. And, the bathrooms were super nice (equally important).

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Taj Mahal

After standing in the rain all day, we got back to Munich and craved something warm and comforting to eat. We had walked by the Taj Mahal a couple of times already since it was near our Airbnb, but I kept telling Steve that we didn't travel all this way to eat Indian food we could get in Chicago. Boy, was I wrong. I'm so glad Steve convinced me to try this place.

Because we were famished, we naturally ordered the special menu, which was essentially a sample of everything. We ended up eating ALL of it. Thank goodness calories on vacation don't count. 

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Nuremberg

It's amazing how 12 hours of sleep can make you feel like a brand new person. After not getting any sleep the night before we arrived in Munich, 12 hours was much needed. No more cranky Linda (much to the delight of Steve, I'm sure).

Because we slept in, we were too late to make a trip to Salzburg or Neuschwanstein, so we decided to visit Nuremberg. It was only a 90 minute drive from Munich. A word of advice, Nuremberg can show up on the GPS in many ways: Nuremberg, Nürnberg, Nueremberg, and Nüremberg).

We had zero expectations about what Nuremberg would be like. I think because of that we found the city much more enjoyable than Munich (the 12 hours of sleep probably helped too).

Before visiting, I only knew of Nuremberg from learning about the Nuremberg trials that took place there between 1945 and 1946. Nuremberg itself is a beautiful, quaint city that really displays the best of Bavarian culture, something I didn't see too much of in Munich. The vibe was super chill, a nice change from the crowds and commercial stores in bigger cities.

The city center was fun to explore. It was bustling with tourists. There was a little market and a music stage. Hovering over all this was St. Lorenz Church, which was originally built in 1477. Fun fact: constructing the church first began in 1270 and took over 200 years to complete. We just don't have history like this in the US!

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restauration kopernikus

We loved this Polish restaurant so much that we ate there for lunch and dinner. We ordered the bigos (cabbage stew with sausage), the piroggen (pierogi), the fränkischer schweinebraten (baked pork and a side of dumpling), and the pfannenschnitzel (schnitzel). The portion sizes were on point.

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