Day 7 - July 5...updated

Today was a full days trip. We went to one of my favorite castles...Neuschwanstein, which is located in Schwangau, about a 3 hour drive from Bergoberbach at the edge of the Alps. We left around 630 AM. The weather was beautiful, 70s and sunny. When I was here 2 years ago, it was March and the day we visited, the ground was still covered with snow. Much much different this time. The flowers were blooming, the trees had leaves...just beautiful. We toured the castle, but while we were waiting we met several people from the Atlanta area. We heard a lot of Americans talking, as well as Germans, Estonians, Italians...it was basically a melting pot of cultures in this one little area. Our tour was in English. Nueschwanstein is a relatively young castle built in the mid to late 1800s. Walt Disney patterned Cinderellas castle after Neuschwanstein. The owner, King Ludwig was about 40 years old when he died, unfortunately the castle was not finished when he died (unexpectedly) and it remains in just about the same condition that it was in when he died. Only about a third remains unfinished. The other two thirds look beautiful with a lot of the decorations patterened after the music and plays of Richard Wagner, who was a good friend of King Ludwig.

After the tour we walked up to the bridge that looks toward the castle. After a nice hike back to the base of the mountian, we had a nice lunch and then we hiked over to a lake and then did some shopping. We got back to Bergoberbach about 8 PM.

Please check out the latest pics...

https://picasaweb.google.com/kmcmullen81/McMullenTravel?feat=directlink



Tomorrow we go to Ansbach to tour the castle and the gardens around the castle.

Update...
One thing I forgot to mention about the trip to Neuschwanstein...Manuel drives a Honda Jazz, rather a small car which fits 5 people...if they are small, but really 4 average size adults. Remember I said it was a 3 hour drive to Schwangau...it was also 3 hours back...in the heat...with 5 adults...6 hours total. Needless to say we felt a bit claustrophobic. Fortunately we were on the autobahn which the average speed we were going was between 140 and 160 kph...in US terms...about 85 to 95 MPH.