This post was mainly written by Jess Hill.
Our second day here in Munich was absolutely incredible. We had an early start to meet our tour bus at 8am for our much anticipated day trip to Neuschwanstein in the Bavarian Alps. Our guide, Ana, made a hearty attempt at humour throughout the day and provided us with some background history of King Ludwig (aka The Mad King) on our two hour trip through the mountains. We were really lucky as a huge amount of snow had fallen in the last couple of days so as we left the Autobahn and wound up the mountain roads everywhere we looked was a picture postcard of beautiful, snow covered forests and picturesque villages. Our first stop was Ludwig's little castle of Lindenhoff, a miniature Versailles that he created as a result of his love of the various French kings, whom he greatly admired. To get to the castle we had a short stroll up a little mountain, past a frozen lake where two swans were preening themselves amidst the snow blanketed forest. We couldn't help but have a snowball fight - it was like scooping up cold powder. The castle itself was a small-ish building that was elaborately decorated in all of the six interior rooms. The room of mirrors was especially incredible - modelled on the one in Versailles, everywhere you looked it appeared that the room continued to infinity.
From Linderhoff we boarded the bus again and went to visit a tiny Alpine village of less than 3000 people for a coffee stop and chance to buy some souvenirs. We were very tempted by the cuckoo clocks, however they were a bit too pricey, if beautifully crafted. We settled on a little christmas carving with lights inside as our souvenir item.
Then it was off to Neushwanstein. The bus ride to the town surrounding the base of the castle was lovely, and as the castle itself is situated atop a mountain, we were able to get some photos of the castle from a fair distance. Unfortunately there is repair work going on, so half of the exterior is covered in scaffolding. Once in the town we had lunch at a local restaurant - best mashed potato ever! Then we began the very long walk up the mountain to get to the castle. Here the snow, while stunningly beautiful, also became somewhat problematic as the mountain road was very, very slippery. The scenery as we ascended was spectacular and as we walked we fell into conversation with an Australian girl, Lea, who is currently studying in England and is over here for a short holiday. We trekked up together and stopped halfway for some deep fried batter balls smothered in powdered sugar and some mulled wine. We finally reached the castle and were blown away by the splendour of both the castle itself and also the scenery around it.
Neushcwansein was an amazing castle, rivalled only by it's greed in making you walk through TWO gift shops. Honestly it was amazing. We then spent about 10 minutes walking around the outside of the castle taking photos before scurrying down the hill, grabbing some fried doughnut balls on the way, back to the bus, making the meeting time by 30 seconds. Believe me, the Germans would have left without us if we weren't there on time.
(Andrew Hill)
We then organised to meet up with Lea after getting changed out of our soaking wet clothes, at the Augustiner Brauhaus on the corner of the street where out hotel is. I (Andrew) drank 1,5L of beer, but Lea out-did me with 2,5L.... crazy. We also met two Aussie guys there, Matt and Shane I believe, who we had some interesting conversations about relationships with, before retiring to the hotel.
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