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.
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).
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.
