Trip to Neuschwanstein Castle (Germany)

Hello my Blog readers….

Now the Localtraveller is in Germany.

Earlier I have been to Germany twice, as a part of my work. During that time, on weekends I had visited so many places like Salzburg, Heidelberg, Black Forest, Lake Constance and so on…But now I am working and living in Germany. So it’s time to explore more……

There was 4 consecutive holidays coz of Good Friday, Easter combined with weekend. So I wanted to make at least a 3 day trip but it was last moment plan so I couldn’t find proper accommodation, also the climate on other three days was rainy, so I planned for a day trip. My first trip in Germany is to Schloss Neuschwanstein (Schloss means Castle).

Neuschwanstein is a very beautiful castle situated on Fussen district in Baveria. The castle was constructed during the period of King Ludwig II in the 19^th century. It is said that the King has took so much of debt to complete this castle but by the time it was completed he spent only 11 nights in the castle before he died.

As I had to depend on public transportation, I planned the trip on previous day like train timing and how to reach the Castle and other stuffs. It took three and half hours from my home to the castle.

Traunstein -> Munich -> Füssen Bahnhof -> Neuschwanstein -> Hohenschwangau

Previous day, I packed things which are necessary for travel like snacks, water and other accessories.

Next day I got up at 5am prepared lunch and breakfast, reached Traunstein station and took a Bayern ticket. As I stay in Bayern and the Castle also comes under Bayern, I took a day pass, with this ticket I can travel in all local transports excepts ICE ( InterCity express) within Bayern. The ticket costs 30€ per person and for every extra person it is plus 4€. So the day pass totally costed 34€.

I took 6:44 train to Munich, after three stops I think I saw a ballooning station. I always wanted to travel in balloon, so I planned to make a day trip in upcoming weekends.

As it was early in the morning and a good sunny day the view was so beautiful and enjoyable.

At 7:30 or so I finished my breakfast followed by a nap. I reached Munich by 8:15 and checked for the platform number of the next connecting train. This was the first time I was in Munich station, it’s a big station with so many people, 50 percent are foreigners and I saw so many Indians as well.

I felt little cold and I wanted to have a coffee, so I went to a coffee shop and bought a cappuccino. I reached next platform and was waiting for the train. As it was long weekend and a beautiful sunny day, I see so many people travelling with their backpacks.

A double decker train approached the station, people were so quick to board the train as there were so many people and were concerned about their seating. Train started moving along the beautiful mountains covered with snow, such a relaxing view…

I reached Füssen by 10:30, there we have to take a bus to the Castle. Once the train reached the platform, co-passengers were running to get a seat in the bus. There was two big busses and somehow I got a seat in the bus.

The Castle was actually located on top of the hill and as soon as the bus started we could able to see the beautiful view of the Schloss Neuschwanstein. It was really spectacular and majestic, all the people in the bus started taking picture in their smart phone.

Finally I reached the foot of the Castle by 10:50 and waited for around 1 hour at the ticket centre to take the entry tickets to visit palace. I have observed that some people have booked their tickets online, and directly started walking towards the castle. On weekends its always better to book online tickets in order to avoid the waiting time in queue.

From the Ticket counter to Castle it is roughly around 2 kms. There are three options one by bus, second by horse bullock cart and third by walk. I preferred by walk as I want to enjoy the view and nature. So after 30min, I reached castle. As I was hungry, I opened my lunch box and started enjoying it in the nature.

Later, I checked for the slot, it is at 2:30, so I was just roaming around the Castle. I saw few foreigners dressed up in Indian costumes and were dancing and singing about God Krishna, I understood that they are from ISCON. I stood there for a while and was enjoying the kirtans. Few people from crowd also joined and started singing and dancing.

As per my slot time I entered the castle, it’s one of the beautiful palace I have ever seen till now, obviously well maintained. I couldn’t take pictures, as I was not allowed. But people were taking snaps but I don’t wanted to take any risk in this case.

After two hours I came out and was tired, my legs were paining heavily. I relaxed for a while and had snacks. There are so many other places to explore on the hill with so many sign boards indicating the name of the places. If you like hiking then there are so many places to explore here. I thought of exploring a place called Marienbrucke.It is actually a bridge which was constructed in between two mountains over the falls. The queue here was almost the same like in the ticket counter. The bridge was very narrow so they were allowing only few people at a time so I just had a view of the bridge from the nearby mountain and started walking back.

I reached back the ticket centre in another 20 mins, This time I changed the walk route, this route is into the forest and very beautiful place with birds, a small water flow and lot more greenery.

I couldn’t visit the Schloss Hohenschwangau because I wanted to explore the town Fussen. From the foot hills I took a bus back to Fussen station and explored the Fussen old town and Market. It was very traditional town with so many restaurants serving food and beverages on the Streets.

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From there I walked to a park which was located next to the old town. I was surprised to see the park was located on the banks of river Lech. I trekked down to the river from the Park and spend some time there. Water was very chill, crystal clear and pure. It is directly coming from the melting snow over the nearby mountains.