Tammy Trip Reports | Day 3 – Neuschwanstein

18 Sep

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Day 3 – Neuschwanstein – THE Castle of Your Dreams

We went to sleep at 9:30, and I was wide awake at 2 am! Dang it, Joan!

I was determined not to get up, so I tossed and turned a little until about 3:30, and slept until 5:30.

We went down for breakfast around 8.

Here’s our lobby again:

The only people there were our fellow adventurers!

Cathy’s trip report said this breakfast buffet was huge, and she was right! I thought it was just one room and it was big, and then I realized there was another room too!

I only took a few pictures of it.

There were pretzels! Woot!

Bread for days.

And meat!

I didn’t get a picture of most of it. Like the fresh honeycombs!

There were also freshly baked croissants. The way to my heart.

It’s a big thing in Europe to have untraditional food for breakfast.

Me, the person who has cookies for breakfast, feels a kinship to that.

In England they always seemed to have baked beans. (I did not feel a kinship of any kind to that one)

In Germany we had Dim sum!

Here’s my breakfast mashup:

After breakfast we met up with Michael in the lobby. He was decked out in Lederhosen today! Another lobby pic:

We walked out to the bus. Our hotel was across the street from some very high end stores.

Looking back at the hotel:

We had a two hour bus ride to Neuschwanstein! Michael entertained us the whole way.

Today we learned even more about Michael and what to expect! First, he was calling people out and asking them questions to see if they were listening.

Actually he did that the night before too. At one point the night before he was telling a story and asked Stephen if he also had a “particular interest in women.”

Stephen answered something along the lines that he “had a very normal interest in women.”

Ha!

While on the bus he called me out for looking down at my phone once while he was talking. Whoops! I did not do that again!

If you weren’t listening and answered something wrong, he called down a “shower of shame” on your head.

At some point the basket of snacks came out. The basket of happiness! My favorite foods from childhood!

The countryside was beautiful!

Finally we could see it! Neuschwanstein! The castle that inspired Walt Disney!

Michael told us stories about the castle and the family that built it.

When we arrived, we walked to the lake for pictures.

The whole group!

This is the other castle on the hill across the street:

We went inside the museum to use the restrooms.

Then we got in line for the bus up the mountain where Michael hopped up on a bench and told us more stories.

The bridge that overlooks the castle was absolutely packed! But we didn’t feel rushed and the guides made sure everyone got pictures.

I took four million pictures, I will spare you all of them.

The maker of the castle – Ludwig, made this bridge so his mom could see the castle. She wasn’t allowed in the castle, she was only allowed to see it from the bridge.

That bridge is basically an “In your face, Mom!” to his mother. Haha!

This was looking down:

When we got off the bridge there were even more people waiting. We had good timing! We walked over to the castle.

Michael carried his Bavarian flag and got one of our young adventurers to help him make a tunnel. He got everyone passing by us to go under the tunnel while he said nice things to them. He was such a nice man. Alica or Melanie took this picture:

Here’s our ticket! No lines for us!

We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the castle, and Michael wasn’t allowed to lead it. It was VERY VERY hard for Michael not to talk. So he had a few sidebars with whomever was standing nearby. I got a few good tidbits from him. One of the paintings inside inspired Walt to make Bambi. And wow did it look like Bambi.

There were a lot of stairs in this castle! And it was not air conditioned. My word it was hot.

It was a great tour though!

Michael stopped us as we were finishing and directed us out to the overlook for this view:

After we finished the guides passed out snacks and Michael gave us a few more tidbits.

Then we could choose whether to take a horse and carriage ride down or walk. I wanted to do the horse and carriage of course!

After that we were on our own for lunch. We ended up at a little restaurant overlooking the lake. It was just gorgeous.

I had a burger!

And Coke Zero in a wine glass!

We walked over to the lake afterwards. Michael had told everyone to bring their swimsuits to swim in the lake and I thought he was joking! But he was not!

Several people did, Michael did, and there were lots of tourists and locals in!

I put my feet in. It was quite nice!

After a little while it was time to go back to the bus.

We did some Origami! Badly.

Then the bus was quiet while everyone rested. Myself included.

Then it was time for snacks again! Man I loved that snack basket. It was giving me life.

Michael had some more stories for us. He talked for a while about music in Germany, starting with Abba. Before we knew it, Dancing Queen was blasting and Michael, Alica, and Melanie were dancing down the aisle in wigs. It was absolutely hilarious.

Our friend JJ was sound asleep with headphones on. He woke up halfway through the dance number. I bet he thought the bus had gone crazy!

Next up was the Age of Aquarius, which was translated the Age of the Wasserman, so there was another big dance number while we all sang. So so funny.

At some point there were flags.

Then Michael and “Ludwig” came around to give us our pin for the day!

When we got back, we were on our own for the evening, so we ran up to the room to freshen up.

Here’s our view:

Melanie and Alica gave us suggestions for restaurants and places to go.

We walked towards the giant park. I didn’t take my camera, but I had my phone!

At one point, people were lined up to take turns surfing in the current! We watched for a while.

The lawn was huge and packed with people enjoying themselves!

The river had a swift current, and tons of people were in it being carried downstream. It looked super fun, but we didn’t have our swimsuits!

That wouldn’t have stopped the locals. Some were in swimsuits, some were in bras and underwear! Whichever they had I guess!

We ended up at a huge German restaurant with Chinese décor.

We decided we weren’t that hungry, and we only wanted gelato for dinner. So we got on our phones, found a nearby place with good reviews and headed there.