Neuschwanstein Castle

After a few weeks of putting off our trip to Neuschwanstein Castle because of Nick's injured leg, we were finally able to go last weekend. NEUSCHWANSTEIN. Whew, that's a mouthful. The Germans pronounce it like this: NEW- SHVON- STINE (phonetic spelling, not official spelling obviously; see above haha). Can you pronounce it? It took me a while to pronounce it correctly. Those German words can be quite tricky sometimes!

Neuschwanstein is nestled in the Bavarian Alps, close to the Austrian border and housed King Ludwig II of Bavaria for a short while before his mysterious death in 1886. King Ludwig was known to be a bit of a recluse but also an eccentric fellow. He spent much of the kingdoms money on building multiple castles, including Neuschwanstein, and borrowing money from lines of credit which upset the members of his cabinet. Rumor has it, he even threatened suicide if he wasn't able to finish building Neuschwanstein. Because of his abnormal and sometimes even defiant behavior, King Ludwig was declared insane and ultimately dethroned. A few days after he was dethroned, he was found in a lake nearby dead but the cause of death is still questioned to this day.

In order to get to Neuschwanstein, you need to park down below in the town of Hohenschwangau and  hike up a hill to reach the castle. There is a bus and horse carriage you can take up the hill for a small fee but we chose to get our exercise and walk up the hill instead. It was definitely a workout and my booty was sore the next day but it was well worth the view. The views of the Bavarian countryside are absolutely stunning.

Inside the castle there are paintings of the famous German composer Richard Wagner's operas throughout many rooms. There are also intricate and ornate wood carvings of swans in Ludwig's bedroom and ceramic art pieces of swans throughout the castle. In fact Neuschwanstein means "New Swanstone" in German so you can understand why there are so many swans inside; King Ludwig loved his swans. Because of Ludwig's untimely death, the interior was never officially completed so there are only a few select rooms that are entirely finished. Unfortunately, photos aren't allowed inside the castle but I did take photos outside the castle and some photos of the town (and other castle) below.

FUN FACT: Walt Disney was inspired to build the castle at Disneyland after seeing Neuschwanstein Castle. Cool, huh?!

Hohenschwangau Castle in the town below Neuschwanstein

The hike up the hill

Imperial Castle in Nuremberg

Nick and I decided to explore the Imperial Castle in Nuremberg last weekend. Nuremberg is only an hour drive from our home so we figured it would be the perfect day trip. Our GPS took us on the scenic route instead of the autobahn, so we were able to see some small German villages on the way there. It was a really neat drive. 

The Imperial Castle is also known as Kaiserburg in German. It's a medieval castle, built on sandstone rock with a bit of tudor architecture and while historians aren't quite sure the exact year it was constructed, most believe it was built around 900 years ago, or about 1100 B.C. The castle was considered "one of the most important imperial castles in the Holy Roman Empire". 

Nick and I chose to take a self guided tour where we walked around and explored ourselves. Unfortunately for us, most of the artifacts had descriptions that were in German and we don't know much German yet so we weren't able to understand what some of the artifacts were. There were some descriptions on some of the larger items so that helped. Obviously items like crowns, armored suits and weapons we understood. We just don't know who they exactly belonged to! Hmm...Maybe we should have taken that guided tour.

The castle has a tower on the premises called the Sinwell Tower. It was used to defend the castle from intruders during battles and war in the middle ages. We were able to walk up the winding wooden spiral staircase inside and let me tell you, that was quite exhausting! After walking up those stairs, I can tell I'm a lot more out of shape than I thought I was. I was literally out of breath. I sat down for a little bit to rest and catch my breath but after that I was and able to enjoy the view from atop the tower. You could see almost all of Nuremberg. Sadly, a lot of the castle was damaged during World War II but it was eventually restored a short while later. Although the castle has been restored, it's sad to know that such a beautiful piece of history was damaged during war. 

The last part of the tour we took was a visit into the Deep Well. Again, the man who was describing the history of the well spoke mostly German but he spoke a little English so we sort of understood the history of it. He lowered some candles into the well to show us how deep the well was. It is almost 50 meters deep! That about 164 feet. Pretty darn deep!

After we toured the castle we stopped at a beer garden just outside the entrance to the castle. It was a charming spot to relax, eat and drink some good beer. I ordered a hefeweizen-radler and a salad with large chunks of feta cheese in it. Yum! And I believe Nick had a radler and some type of "wurst"...bratwurst maybe? I'm not good at describing German food. Sorry! It was a cute spot to eat and I thoroughly enjoyed my meal. I wish we were able to spend more time in the city so we could explore other parts but since Nuremberg is just an hour drive away, I'm sure we will be back again to explore some more!