Dreams Do Come True...in Bavaria!

As many of you know, I took German as my foreign language and have always wanted to visit the NeuSchwanstein Castle in Germany.  Today, I got to see it and it was amazing!  But, before we get started on the castle, lets talk about a few things Jason and I have learned in Europe so far.


1. The fastest way to lose weight is to leave the US.  Jason and I are having trouble eating over here and in fact, just had our first full meal for dinner tonight.  We said, screw trying to eat like Germans and we found some good ol Italian food.  Jason is doing better than I am, believe it or not!


2. The bathrooms over here are disgusting.  They make 7/11 bathrooms look like 5 Star Hotel bathrooms, so gross I can't even tell you.  On the train today, I went to use the bathroom and when I flushed, I saw train tracks rushing by below me.  Yes, the train flushes on the tracks.


3. Everyone walks around with Beer over here.  On the street, on the train, there is no bad place for beer!  We like this rule!


Ok, lets get back to the castle.  Today we hopped on another train and took a 2 hour ride into the Alps to Fussen and then took a bus to Hohenschwangau. Here are a few from the train ride.

 

The Alps are so huge!  These pictures do not do them justice.

After finally arriving in Hohenschwangau, Jason and I tried to find some food to eat.  We stumbled upon fries and Coke!  We felt like we were home again.  A Coke has never tasted so good.

Then, I finally saw it. Way up on the hill.  Neuschwanstein.

We picked up our tickets and started the 45 minute hike up the mountain.  You could take a horse carriage up...

...but we decided to walk.

 

This picture over looks the castle King Ludwig II grew-up in.

So, we walked for 45 minutes and came upon the castle.

We then walked to Mary's Bridge where we got these amazing pictures!

   

 

Then as we were walking back down to the Castle, we saw some people walking out of a closed off area and wanted to see what was down there.  So, we ignored this sign...

...and this one...

...walked down these steps...

...and got to see this amazing view.  It is a waterfall that goes under Mary's Bridge(where the previous photos were taken)

After this adventure, we headed back up to the Castle and took some photos.  I couldn't take any except out the windows once we got into the Castle.  Only 15 rooms were ever completed out of the 150 that were planned, so the tour was pretty short, but there was an amazing floor made out of 2 million mosaic pieces and the wood work in the kings bedroom took 14 people, 4 years to complete.

This is a picture from another look out point.

After several hours of walking and finally feeling hungry I scarfed down this pretzel.  Well, until Jason realized how yummy it was and starting sneaking bites!

Overall, we had a great day today and seeing the countryside was amazing.  Tomorrow we are going to wonder around Munich and celebrate Jason's B-Day!  We might not be able to post again until Wednesday night because we have a night train tomorrow night to Venice.  Love and miss you all!