Let's Travel to Fussen, Germany

Home to Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig II's castle perhaps best known as the inspiration for the Disney Castle. While I admit that it is my love of classic Disney movies (with the castle at the beginning of each movie) that initially drew me to this small Bavarian town, the peaceful mountains and lakes surrounding it will keep me coming back.

We drove to Fussen from Munich. You could take a bus or local train, but I would highly recommending a car. Not only is it a fun experience to drive on the Autobahn, and on the winding roads in the mountains, but it was helpful in allowing us to drive near by Lake Hopfensee and dine at Restaurant Fischerhutte on the lake. After a few days in hopping Munich, this was a peacefully romantic dinner scene. 

But back to the Castles. Ok. Prior to embarking on our Switzerland, Germany, Austria trip in August 2013 I would tell people our itinerary and I got a lot of "oh, Fussen, it's touristy". And I will admit that around 12:30pm when we were done touring the castles and made our way back down the hill, the amount of people in line for tickets was shocking. Lesson learned? Reserve tickets for the first scheduled tour at 9am. 

If you booked both castles, the tour starts at Hohenschwangau, the childhood home of King von Ludwig.

The Bavarian decor is fun and lively.

Hohenschwangau is neat for a number of reasons. Including the fun exterior with lots of fountains with a great view.

There is a telescope in King von Ludwigs bedroom that he used to monitor the construction of Neuschwanstein - see it in the background?

Hohenschwangau, is actually the namesake of the very small town where the castles are located just a couple of miles away from Fussen.

There are multiple methods of transportation to get from the Hohenschwangau side of the mountain to the Neuschwanstein side. If you are tired of walking, there are buses and horse drawn carriages, we decided to walk and enjoyed the view Alpsee Lake along the way.

This picture is from basically the same spot, but you can see the restaurant that we had lunch at on the left. I can't remember the name, but its the last place to eat before the lake. 

Before we ate lunch though we headed up to Neuschwanstein. The way that they give you the tickets there is plenty of time between the two tours to walk around and take pictures. This one is looking back towards the town we had dinner in the night before. 

The entrance of Neuschwanstein. How pretty is the white and red?

Once you get up close and through the main entrance you are in the courtyard. 

The detail shot. 

You cannot take pictures inside the castles, but the inside was just as cool as the outside. I had read/heard that the inside of Neuschwanstein wasn't as interesting because it isn't finished. If it had been finished it would have been over 200 rooms, but only about 15 were completed when Ludwig was arrested from his bedroom in the castle (he mysteriously drowned soon after being arrested). The Ludwig bedroom and throne room are spectacular and are totally worth it. The tour isn't long, but it's still impressive.

Back outside.

You can apparently get some good pictures of the castle from this bridge.

But my husband does not like heights so we were not going to stand on that bridge just for another nice shot of the castle.

Even sharing Fussen with a lot of people this was my favorite stop on our Europe 2013 trip. Can you blame me? (Hohenschwangau is on the right).