Neuschwanstein Castle

On Sunday we went to Neuschwanstein! I've been wanting to visit the castle for a long time, so we were excited to finally be going. Neuschwanstein is located in Hohenschwangau, about two hours out of Munich.

We got up early and got the train, the scenery on the way there was incredible. It was so German! Just fields and fields everywhere, and these amazing mountains and lakes. It was just like a postcard!

We arrived just before lunch. There are a few ways to get up to the castle, which is on the side of a mountain. You can get the bus, a horse and carriage, or walk. Walking takes about half an hour, all uphill. Since we're not lazy, we decided to walk. We beat all the horses and buses going up, and it was such a nice walk. You could see the castle peeking through the trees on the way up, so that was cool. They had gift shops and a couple of restaurants just below the castle, we stopped for lunch after we had visited the castle, and had amazing weinerschnitzel and pommes frites. Plus a big glass of house beer.

The views from the castle are stunning, you can see for AGES. You couldn't take any photos from inside the castle, but we took heaps of the outside.

The best view of the castle is from a bridge a 20 minute walk from the castle itself. The bridge is VERY high, and there are no signs as to how many people it can hold or anything. Everyone was just crowded all in one spot! So Bradley was sent out onto the bridge to get the amazing landscape shots of the castle, while I stayed firmly on solid ground, not about to plummet to my death just for a photo! (Though saying that it seems I was willing to let Brad plummet to his??) Well we did get some amazing photos :)

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Hohenschwangau and Fussen, the two towns closest to the castle. There was a completely amazing postcard worthy lake in Hohenschwangau, we could have spent all day there, but it started raining so we moved on. We were lucky we only got a little bit of rain, since the forecast was for thunderstorms.

This was definitely my favourite part about our trip to Germany, the whole thing was just like a fairytale. I can see why it was used as the inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland.

The walk up to the castle

New Zealand flags at the souvenir stand!

The sheer drop at the side of the castle!

You can see the bridge in this photo. It's so high, and doesn't seem safe at all! But such a good view..

Taken from the Marienbruecke bridge

This is where I stayed while Bradley was getting our amazing photos from the 

Marienbruecke