[Europe Trip] Day 8 - Neuschwanstein Castle

1st August 2015 (Saturday)

Little wiki on Neuschwanstein Castle - It is a nineteenth-century palace on a hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. It was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle.

Directions:
We took a train from Munchen to Fussen (find out the train timing on bahn website on the day itself, it might change). As there's 2 of us, we bought the Bayern tickets for 2 (28 euros). The ticket can be used for all train rides for the day. Then we took bus 78 (for bus stop, just follow everybody else) to the ticketing centre.

Notes:
1. Please reserve your tickets (here, it's in German) as soon as possible! When we arrived at 12plus, the queue for buying the tickets was very long, and the only tickets left was for the slots after 5pm!
2. You need to join the 30 mins guided tour. you could not access the castle otherwise and wander off on your own. Pictures are not allowed during the tour.
3. Please plan your trip well, it takes about 2 hours for the train ride, and the train only came every 1 hour. Otherwise, you would miss your reserved time-slot like us.
4. But luckily, we had made reservations, thus even though we were late, we were given the next available time slot without having to queue.
5. don't bother taking the bus or horse carriages, the queue would be too long. If you are physically fit, it is possible to hike up the hill. It took us 30 mins to hike (coupled with running) to the castle. Even if you take the bus or horse carriages, at one point where the hill was very steep, you would still need to climb.
6. Beware of horse dumps everywhere.

Pictures:

 uphill

 reached the castle

 view from castle. the civilization near the yellow castle was where we started the hike!

 model of castle (front)

 model of castle (side)

view of castle from the bus 78 bus-stop

Dinner:
After we were back from the castle, we went to another beer hall for dinner. it was again a bad experience. the waitress would only came every half an hour (to take order for beer, to serve beer, to take order for meal, to serve meal) despite us calling her. Our dinner ended up to last 2 hours, and the dishes were very salty.