Our castle-exploring day started with a traditional Bavarian breakfast of white sausages and white beer. We were also entertained to see that this comes with bretzeln as well as a sweet and spicy mustard. Despite our intimidation, it was delicious! Good thing, because we needed this fuel for coming day trip. We then headed to the central station and took a train out to the small town of Fussen. A quick bus trip then took us to the village of Schwangau where the castles of Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein are located. We first hiked to a historical suspension bridge named Marienbrucke for a great view and photo op of Neuschwanstein castle, waterfalls, and the Swiss Alps. This bridge was quite high up and not as sturdy as we would have liked, so we then headed toward the castle itself. Unbeknownst to us, this was quite a hiking experience and we wished we had brought our walking sticks! We explored the castle grounds and inside the doors being typical tourists. While it’d be nice to live here, we still prefer the Viennese castle with gardens and zoo! After our trip we caught a train back to downtown Munich, where we were supposed to grab pizza with our local friends. However, we realized very quickly our train was 2 hours sooner than anticipated! We quickly left with bags in tow for Hauptbanhof to catch our train to Italy. Luckily our Munich friends were able to meet with us and direct us to the correct gate and help us board. All was well and good until we realized that our tickets were booked for the wrong day…. As in, tomorrow. So, no sleeper car for us!! However, we were able to find the food cart until additional seats were prepared for us and managed to get a couple hours of rest in a compartment. A bit of sleep and Firenze here we come!!
Early morning, we ventured out to find our traditional favorite: Starbucks!! We met with a group for a tour of Dachau concentration camp memorial site. This tour was not out your average Holocaust lesson and we were enlightened about many things not found in US history books. It was very eye-opening and difficult, but we are very glad to have been able to experience this first hand. After all this heavy material, we decided to go back to our new favorite, fondly known as the HB… the Hofbrauhaus. After a quick stay there, we left to meet our Munich friends for dinner at a local favorite. After, we booked our tickets for Neuschwanstein at the Hauptbanhof central station. We called an earlier night to get ready for our big castle-exploring day!
Well, we missed our original train from Vienna to Munich. Really!? This was because we failed to realize we were leaving from a different station than where we arrived. No worries... 2 hours later another train came to bring us to lovely Munich! We were met at the train station by our friend Carsten, who we have known for a couple months. He lives in Munich and showed us how similar the U-bahn was to Berlin. After a quick train ride, we were able to drop our bags and find a local Bavarian restaurant and brewery. We sat at a huge wooden table with about 12 other people we didn’t know/could not speak to and ordered food we could not pronounce from women in traditional German attire. Amy had the special (a mix of all kinds of delicious things!), Mandi had the pork knuckle, and Krystal and roast duck. Sounds a little crazy, but we all shared these traditional meals, which were delicious. AND we found our pretzels and liter beers, ie brezeln and bier! After our delicious dinner we discovered that some toilet seats in Munich put on a show. While the gals went to the bathroom, Amy shouted that her seat would not stop moving! The seats rotate for cleaning, but Amy’s seemed to be on a mission to become clean and would not stop! After figuring this out, we ventured to the Hofbrauhaus for more bretzeln and liter beers! We learned the traditional Prost or “toast” song and enjoyed live Bavarian music. Yes lederhosen are hot. Carsten’s friends joined us and we had a great night learning about German culture.
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