Because we're jet lagged, we start waking up around 2 to 3 am. I know my parents woke up earlier than me, and they became desperately hungry. So hungry that my dad, who detests most sweets, ended up eating a few stroopwafels (or in Germany, karamellwaffeln) with coffee. I think they are amazingly delicious and have been lusting after them since seeing them on the Great British Bake Off, but my dad was not a fan. It's a sign of how hungry he was that he continued to eat after taking the first bite 😂. By the time I woke up, my mom, who had eaten some fruit, cookies and croissants, was complaining she was starving. I had some instant miso soup packets in my suitcase (that was still in the car), and so my dad and I tromped across the street in the dark in the middle of the night to grab a few packets of miso soup. Because I am OCD about my suitcase, I knew exactly where it was and we quickly power walked back to our snug little room because it was SO COLD!
So in the middle of the night, we sat in our room watching TV, eating cookies and miso soup. That's how we began our first full day of vacation. The plan was to 1) grab tickets for Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castle that I'd reserved ahead of time and 2) eat breakfast and 3) tour the castles. Then we had a 1.5-2 hour drive to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Oh, and also, I wanted to do the tour with the Nightwatchman while at Rothenburg because it's so highly rated. A little ambitious? Maybe. But awesome!
The ticket office opened up at 7am, and that's when breakfast started - so I went to go line up and grab our tickets while my parents went down to breakfast. I got to the ticket office around 6:45 am and was about 15th in line - there was already a line! Most of the people already had reservations for the castles - there was also a standby line that had less people in it. At first, I thought that was totally unfair that I had to stand in a longer line despite doing my homework and making reservations months in advance of my visit - but once the office opened, they had 2 (sometimes 3) windows helping those with reservations, and only one window helping the standby people. So it paid off to book months ahead of time. Do it. You get the good morning times.
Meanwhile, while I was freezing in line, my parents were snug as a bug in the hotel's restaurant where they were serving breakfast. A lot of tourists from nearby hotels/villages came in asking if they could purchase coffee - but strangely, our hotel ignored this revenue stream and said it was only available for guests. Europeans, unlike Americans, don't appear to care that much for making money. I mean - sell those coffees for 2 Euros a cup man! A TON of people would totally come and buy from you!
The breakfast was okay. It was pretty typical of the breakfasts we ended up eating for the week. Germans apparently eat a lot of bread, meats and cheese in the morning. There are yogurts and hard boiled eggs. Then coffee or chocolate which they brought over to us. There weren't a lot of sweets - but they did have Nutella spread, so I made my own chocolate hazelnut croissant. Because I can.
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| the crowds are still light after breakfast as we take off towards Hohenschwangau. To the right is our hotel. |
We had reservations to tour Hohenschwangau Castle at 9:15 am, then Neuschwanstein at 11:30 am. Hohenschwagau was a 10 minute walk uphill - and there were some places for you to be able to rest and catch your breath as you walk up.
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| obligatory horrible family selfie! |
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| fountain in the courtyard |
When you reach the castle, you wait in a courtyard with everyone else - and it was MUCH less crowded at Hohenschwangau than at Neuschwanstein. But there's a large board and you wait for your number/appointment time to be called, and THAT'S when you can actually scan your ticket to go through the turnstiles to go in. We saw a guy who missed his appointment time in Neuschwantein and his ticket wouldn't scan, and they wouldn't let him go in and to clear it up, he had to go ALL the way back to the village because there's no ticket office in/near the castle to help him.
While waiting, because we had over 20 minutes until our tour started, I wandered around the royal gardens with fountains and topiary and awesome views. Seriously, I can see why the Bavarian kings built their castles here - the view is amazing!
Tucked off behind some bushes (I only noticed because I saw some people walking from that direction) there's a little alcove with a red window. I think it's a spa! It looks like a tub built into a cave (or like a cave) where the king (or queen) can bathe and look at the gardens!
Super OCD about missing the tour, we go back and grab a bench in the courtyard to await our turn to visit the castle.
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| Another terrible family selfie! |
The interior of the castle was AWESOME. This used to be a hunting lodge, but King Maximilian II converted/renovated it into a summer home, with the family's base in Munich as that was the capital of Bavaria. It's not large, but it was opulently furnished and beautiful inside. It's a travesty that they don't let us take photos inside. Because it's so nice. For a castle, it was actually very cozy, and you can see that this place really was a home. Because my parents are not as fluent in English, we took the audio tours, and on our tour there were people of various nationalities. As you grab your device they ask you which language you prefer and they program the language for you. As you go on the tour, there's a docent who guides the group from room to room and you have to lift you device so her device could "beam" you the next portion of the audio tour. So as we moved from one room to another, we would lift our listening devices to hers so our audio tour portion for that particular room would start. It was kind of an inconvenient system, but it worked.
We were allowed ONE photo. And it was a photo OUT. We were allowed to take photo out of the queen's window from her quarters.
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| The queen had a VERY nice view |
The tour in the castle was under 30 minutes and when we were done, we walked around a bit in the gardens and took more photos.
We walked down the hill back to the village and went to our car to deposit our jackets because it had warmed up considerably. After depositing our jackets, we went to purchase a bus ticket to ride the shuttle to Neuschwanstein. The hike up was estimated at 45 minutes...uphill. Yeah, we will pay the 3 Euros per person please! We arrive just as a bus was pulling away, but that meant we were near the front of the line so we got to nab seats on the way up!
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| our "ticket" - a very sexy receipt in German |
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| we were so early we could even sit as we waited, although as the crowd grew, I stood up to hold our place in line when other tourists tried to cut in front of us. |
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| I'm still running on caffeine and smiling |
The trip up was...maybe 10 minutes or less? But it would've taken too long to walk up. They drop us off and we opt to go to Marienbrücke (Queen Mary's Bridge) first. It's this rickety bridge to nowhere, but it offers the most awesome (and postcard famous) views of Neuschwanstein. The bridge is PACKED with people - people squeezing to the middle to grab a photo of a castle, then those same people jostling their way BACK, and it was a little scary and freaky for someone who is terrified of heights. But hey, when in Rome...or Germany... 😬😬😬😬
I brave the rickety bridge, shoving my way along to try to get a view of the castle.
You can elbow your way forward to grab the shot, but trying to get a photo of your group (or yourself) with the view is SO HARD. The bridge is packed and narrow with people constantly shoving around in both directions. You had to lean back, and wait for that MILLISECOND of time where there's no one in front of you to quickly snap a photo. Most of them turned out bad. 😢
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| This is the shot everyone gets. It's the shot everyone wants. So it's not special, but you gotta get it anyway. |
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| quickly snapped when there was a teeny tiny gap in the line of people throwing their elbows around |
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| bad selfie, but our faces are sorta kinda in it |
A very nice man asked if we could take a photo of he and his wife, so I complied, but I asked if he could take a photo of us. He did not have mad photo skills, since his finger covered a chunk of our photo 😒 But bad or not, at least there's one of the three of us. Proof we did not steal these shots from the internets!
I somehow got it into my head that our appointment (entry time) was 11:15 instead of 11:30, and we HAULED ASS to the castle. There's still a 15 (20 if you're a little slower) walk - much of it uphill on uneven terrain) to the courtyard of the castle where they call your number. After dragging my poor parents there, my dad, while panting with exhaustion, was like, why are you hurrying? We have 15 minutes left. 😑😑😑😑 Oops. Sorry.
The facade was covered in scaffolding being restored, so we didn't see it - this is the sad shot of the front doors as we walked into the courtyard to await our turn.
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| the only photo taken in the courtyard - my mom thought to document me fumbling with my stuff |
It was MUCH more crowded than the courtyard of Hohenschwangau. There were also many constructions wall up marring our view, but we found seats on a bench further away from the action to await our turn - and when it got close, I scooted closer to the display that would show the group numbers being called and when ours were called, we were ushered in. Backpack purses were allowed, but we had to carry them in the front so we didn't inadvertently knock into anything priceless.
I have no photos of the interior, because they did not allow photos, but we were given audio guides and were once again ushered from room to room. I had read a lot of reviews of people underwhelmed by the interior, but I actually thought it was gorgeous. Each room was very distinct - the Byzantine throne room was eye popping, and the king's bedroom was weird and dark. But each room had a specific character and theme and I found it really interesting. I personally think it's worth it to get tickets to see the interior. Coming from America, you don't get a whole lot of opportunities to see how a real king lived, to see the furnishings and textiles he handpicked over 100 years ago and lived among. I thought it was a lot of fun.
There's a balcony past the cafe and gift store that had a phenomenal view and we were allowed to take photos there.
After sitting for a few minutes because my parents were both exhausted, we made our way down that long steep hill to the bus stop, which was really disorganized.
There wasn't really a stop, just a BUNCH of people milling around and gathered in the same area where the bus had dropped off. There were no markings or signposts, just...people everywhere. When a bus finally lumbered its way up, all the people rushed towards the bus...except for us and a few others, who stood around. Well, everyone who rushed for the bus got screwed because the bus driver only opened the front doors to the bus, which was literally right in front of us. So once again, for the ride down, we got seats in a standing room only bus.
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| I'm grimacing and smiling in a horribly painful way because the caffeine had worn off and I was tired |
We made our way down and headed to our car to begin our drive to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. It was after 1 pm at this point, and neither of my parents wanted to eat in Hohenschwangau.
Instead, we drove to Fussen, which was on our way, paid 2 Euros to park, and ran to a supermarket to stock up on more snacks and provisions. I ended up eating a pretzel, as did my parents because none of the food appealed to them and I just wanted to hit the road.
The drive to Rothenburg wasn't as idyllic as the drive from Munich to Hohenschwangau, but there were some pretty places that my mom took some photos of as we were driving. Most of it ended up on the autobahn, which was very neat, clean and easy to drive. German drivers are very organized!
We made it to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, checked into our little room at Kreuzerhof Hotel Garni, a very small family run establishment. I picked the location because even though it's within the walls of the old town (it's close to everything), it's close enough to the walls that driving in and out wouldn't be too painful and the place also offered parking for 4 Euros a night, which is a gift because parking in Germany is terrible! Driving over cobblestone on super narrow tight streets ain't easy, but we managed to make our way there without killing anyone. But entry was weird. I kept knocking at the front door, which wasn't clearly marked. Eventually the owner opened the small door in the gate, confirmed who we were, and he opened the gate for us so we could park inside his property. They only have 9 rooms (I think), and it's not fancy or upscale - but it was clean and perfectly comfortable and perfect for our purposes.
I had originally booked a quad, but I kept it even after Raymond had to back out just for more space. The extra bed is in its own little antechamber. I ended up just sleeping in the same large room as my parents since the little bed in its own little room was a little...weird. It was after five when we arrived, and the Nightwatchman tour left at 8, so we all went down for a power nap since we were still super jet lagged and already had a long day.
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| the view when you enter the room. It's a small narrow space with a wardrobe right by the door and a twin size bed by itself. On the left is the door into the larger room as well as the bathroom. |
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| from the doorway of the little twin room: the bed in the back is were I slept, to the left you can see the queen size bed my parents slept in. |
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| the bathroom - it was unimpressive, but it was clean, which is more important |
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| small cruiseship sized shower with molesting shower curtain - but it at least had good water pressure and was sufficient for a nice shower |
The alarm went off all too soon at 7:30 pm. We put our clothes back on - and realized it was cold and raining! It wasn't raining hard, but it was more than a drizzle - it was a steady shower. I put on my travel water-resistant coat I purchased for the trip (it was packable and packed VERY small) and we set out for the 6 minute walk to the town hall where the tour started every single night.
Despite the cold and the rain, there was a pretty large group of people waiting for the tour. We were fortunate that soon after the tour started, the rain pretty much stopped. I was still glad that I wore my heavier down coat though, because it got pretty cold. Within 5 minutes of the tour, my mom pooped out. After all the uphill and downhill walking of the day, her back was in a lot of pain, so I texted her the location of our hotel and she and my dad went back to the room to rest while I did the tour alone. With 87 other strangers.
The tour has really good reviews on Tripadvisor, and for good reason. Despite the crowds, I didn't have a problem hearing him at all, and he went at a really good pace blending history with humor. He gave us a glimpse into medieval life in Rothenburg, and it was educational as well as fun. He pointed out fun details in the buildings all over town, talked about World War II and how a part of the city's revered wall was destroyed by the allies and then how the world came together to then help Rothenburg restore the wall. The tour was around an hour, and it was an hour, as well as 10 Euros (it cost 8, I tipped 2) WELL spent. He took payment at the end of the tour and we dumped cash into his hat. He also sold a DVD that I regret not buying now 😢😢.
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| do you see the face on the city gave? |
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| see it now? They used to be able to pour hot tar on intruders that would come out of the mouth of the face on the gate |
We also learned that as a free imperial city that was wealthy, the city had to be careful, and thus would close the city gates at night. They put in a small pedestrian gate, but those who passed curfew had to pay a fee to reenter the city at night. The door is original, from 500 years ago.
After the tour was over, I Google mapped my way back to the hotel, but because my parents had the key that unlocked the gate, I had to text my dad and wait for him to open the gate for me. They were so tired they didn't want to go eat (I had scoped out an Italian place open late), instead, they ate instant noodles we had purchased at the market earlier that were supposed to be snacks. I didn't want to walk out and eat on my own, so I also ate my spicy instant noodles. They cost WAAAY more than they do at home, but what can you do when you crave instant noodles? Which I LOVE because I rarely got to eat those growing up. I was more tired than hungry, so after my cup of spicy noodles and cookies, I showered and went to bed. We had a busy day scheduled, so we needed all the sleep we could get.
