Today featured our earliest start to the trip with alarms set for 6:15 a.m. in order for a 7:00 breakfast and 7:30 departure. Per Rick Steves’ advice, we reserved our tickets for the famous Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein Castles in advance, which required arrival and pickup by 8:20, a full hour before the first tour.
The breakfast spread at Ginterhof was the most extensive we’ve experienced so far on our vacation. It featured more than a dozen types of sliced meats, even more varieties of sliced cheese, no fewer than 8 loaves of bread, plus yogurts, jams, and juice. It’s notable the butter allocated for our section of the breakfast room was significantly less than the butter for others; our host noted Americans typically didn’t eat as much butter as Europeans. Amanda was quick to note my fondness for copious amounts of butter, and I fully expect we’ll see much more tomorrow.
Yogurts, fruit, jams, and a sweet bread made up the “sweet” section of the breakfast options.
We were in our parking spot a few minutes after 8:00; while Amanda headed up the hill with the kids to Hohenschwangau Castle, I was off in the opposite direction to collect our tickets. In the end, we made it to the castle courtyard nearly 40 minutes before our English guided tour was set to begin. Noah and Emmie entertained themselves (and a few onlookers) with several rounds of “Ring Around the Rosie” before we spent a few minutes exploring the castle’s small garden area.
A zoomed-in look at the castle from our parking lot.
“Ring Around the Rosie” in the castle courtyard.
Noah poses in front of the 4-lion fountain in the castle’s garden area.
Amanda and Noah just after the tour concluded.
Tours are required to enter the castle, and the 30-minute, high-level tour provided several interesting glimpses into the 19th-century castle’s history and most famous occupant, King Ludwig II. Afterwards, we were off to visit the most famous German castle, Neuschwanstein, known for its appearances in many movies and being the inspiration for the castle in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.
Like Hohenschwangau, Neuschwanstein sits on top of a hill, though this one was at least twice as high as the first. Amanda had the very reasonable suggestion to take the shuttle bus up the hill, but I insisted on the walk to make sure there was no chance we missed our scheduled tour. Alas, the walk was strenuous and shuttle bus would clearly have been a better option, but on the plus side, we were able to make an impromptu ice cream stop near the summit of the hike to the castle.
A long ways to climb to get to Neuschwanstein Castle.
The closer we got to the castle, the more intense the crowds. With up to 6,000 daily visitors, everything was bigger here: tour groups ballooned to 60 instead of 35. The castle was bigger, too, meaning more steps to climb and ground to cover; from start to finish, the tour featured over 300 steps. Our guide had a heavy German accent which resulted in a few less informational takeaways from this tour; nonetheless, it was worth the time to see the impressive interior of this oft-visited castle.
We did get a great photo of our clan before the tour.
Emmie slept on Amanda for much of the castle tour.
After some downtime in the castle’s cafe and a couple of purchases in the gift shop, I again insisted we climb another hill, this time up to Mary’s Bridge, which has been shortlisted as one of the best bridges in the world and reported to offer the best view of the Neuschwanstein Castle. The bridge was unbelievably crowded, so we were only on it for a few minutes, to walk far enough in to grab the quintessential castle photo. We were set to have a family picture taken with the castle in the background, only to have our camera reach its “battery exhausted” point before the photo could be taken.
On our walk to the bridge, Noah posed with his new stuffed swan with Hohenschwangau in the backdrop.
Emmie sticks her head through the bridge gate for the best view.
Even though a walk back to the car would have been easier than the uphill climb, we opted to spend the modest fare to take the shuttle bus back to the parking lot. We were quickly in the car and on the road to our next destination, Tegelberg Luge, a late addition to our itinerary.
We added the stop because of its close proximity to the castles and Rick Steves’ description of the course as being a great introduction to the art of luge rides. Luge is a bit different than yesterday’s alpine coaster in that there are no tracks for the downward descent through the mountainside. I bought a six pack of rides, giving me two rides with Noah and Amanda one. (Emmie was too little to ride.)
While Noah and I were purchasing the tickets and riding, Amanda was eating a late lunch of a bratwurst and french fries. She wasn’t a fan of the overly-spicy brat but the fries were solid and enjoyed by both Amanda and Emmie. After the luge rides were over, the kids hung around the playground for a bit before we returned to the car to drive to our next destination, Oberammergau, Germany.
Emmie was too young to ride the luge but had fun at the adjacent playground.
By the time we arrived in Oberammergau, Noah was asleep, so Emmie and I shopped through the aisles at a couple of grocery stores to allow an extended nap. Even with the extra snoozing, he wasn’t too interested in shopping at the woodcarving stores in the town, which were the main focus of our stop.
Oberammergau’s main drag featured a combination of touristy shops with souvenirs of questionable origin and quality, and super-high-end woodcarving stores out of our budget. On the walk back to the car, however, we found a small wood-carving shop where we were able to pick up a few cheaper, still-homemade but potentially less refined items, to purchase.
We then made the scenic drive back to our guest house in Austria via the picturesque Lake Plansee. We also were thrilled to stop by Hotel Maximilian, where we picked up two loads of laundry we had dropped off the night before. For an extremely worthwhile fee, the hotel washed, dried, and folded the majority of our dirty clothes; we were so excited with the fresh laundry that we compiled our remaining clothes for a second load to pickup tomorrow.
Lake Plansee in northern Austria.
Money extremely well spent.
After a long day, we mailed in dinner again with a return trip to the Reutte McDonald’s. This time around, we stuck to core menu items, with purchase including a Big Mac, a 9-piece order of chicken McNuggets, and two orders of French fries. After the meal, we used the restaurant’s free wifi while the kids entertained themselves on the outdoor play place.
Noah wasn’t interested in a photo after playing. Note his red face from a lot of running and climbing.
Up next: Another luge course, the Alpenzoo, and Salzburg.