The King's Castles

Saturday and Sunday, July 20 and 21, 2013

On Saturday morning after breakfast and check out, we caught a taxi to the local Hertz rental car office, where we picked up the car we’d have for the next week: a fairly spacious, black BMW 3 series diesel wagon I promptly dubbed, “Dieter” (remember Sprockets?)  On our way out of Salzburg, we decided to stop at a museum called Hangar 7, which essentially houses the collection of race cars and aircraft belonging to Dietrich Mateschitz, who is the king of the Red Bull empire and Filthy. Stinking. Rich.  This place was simply over the top.  The building itself was a work of art: a gleaming steel and glass dome setting off this prized possessions in bright, natural light.  

In addition, there was a swanky bar and a couple of shi-shi eateries serving up gourmet snacks and meals.  But I wasn’t really impressed until I went downstairs to use the WC where there were two MONSTROUS and exquisite flower arrangements, taller than me.  Nevermind the shiny Red Bull F-1 cars, those freaking flowers in the loo were amazing!

We didn’t stay too long, as we had places to go.  Our next destination was the town of Ehrwald, where after driving through gorgeous alpine vistas dotted by random castle ruins and crystal blue lakes, vast green meadows and picturesque towns, we arrived in Ehrwald.  We made our way to to the gondola station at base of the Zugspitze mountain, on the Austria-Germany border, and the tallest peak in Germany at 2,064 meters (about 10,000 feet).  

Alpine vista

Gondola Base Station

Here we bought tickets and boarded a large cable car which whisked us to the summit in about 10 minutes.  On the way up, there were only about 5 or 6 other passengers in the 80 person capacity gondola, which was fantastic, as it allowed us the freedom to move around the cabin and take pictures in all directions as we soared rapidly high up above the rugged terrain below.  

Look closely to see our shadow down below!

Going up!

Looking back down

The little town of Ehrwald grew tinier and tinier the higher up we flew and ascended into the clouds, and I had to put on my sweater as the air grew considerably cooler.  Upon reaching the top, we entered a substantial complex, which housed a cafeteria, WCs, and of course, a sausage stand and bar, in addition to the sizable viewing platforms and decks.  Ewan was absolutely delighted to discover a huge pile of snow that had been pushed to the center of one of the viewing decks, and he wasted no time attacking it with his little hands and feet, immediately forming a little snowball and hurling it excitedly at the snow bank, before climbing to the top of the freezing pile and slip-sliding his way back down, his tennis shoes offering little traction.  

First time touching snow!

There were definitely clouds at the top, but conditions were changing quite quickly, and the clouds were blown about to offer some spectacular views.  We stayed up at the top for close to an hour and a half, amongst tourists, as well as a multiethnic crew of hard core hikers who made it to the top the hard way, seven plus hours on foot, one hiker told us!  Many of them were celebrating their victory over the mountain by guzzling frothy steins of beer, and I even caught a few whiffs of another type of celebratory, non-cigarette smoke.  The ride back down the gondola was considerably more crowded.  

Never fear, there's beer way up here!

We continued on our way toward the little town of Reutte, which is just 20 minutes away from the very famous castle, Neuschwanstein, which was our planned destination for the next day.  We arrived at our Rick-recommended, family-run hotel, “Das Beck” (no Starwood here) and parked in the tiny lot in the back.  The owner Hans gave us a warm welcome and got us situated, offering to make us a dinner reservation, and giving us our all-important wifi access cards.  It was actually our 17 year wedding anniversary, and so we hoped to go somewhere nice.  He recommended the restaurant in a hotel a block or so away, which though not fancy, was surprisingly actually the best meal we had in Austria so far.

The next morning we got up, ready to join the mobs of all the other tourists flocking to see the famed Neuschwanstein, the real life fairytale castle that inspired Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty’s castle, and has also been featured in several movies, including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  We left our hotel around 9:00 and drove toward the town of Fussen where the signs led us to the Königschlösser (a.k.a. the king’s castles).  Yes, that is plural.  What most people don’t know is that there are actually two castles right near each other.  The lesser castle, Hohenschwangau is the boyhood home of “Mad” King Ludwig II, who built Neuschwanstein to be a retreat from the politics he so hated in Munich.  

We began our tour at Hohenschwangau.  Our ticket entry time for our tour was at 10:55.  We arrived very early, as we didn’t know how long it would take us to park and get to where we needed to be.  Both castles are built on hills, and it takes a good twenty minutes or more to hike from the ticket center (we picked ours up from will call) up to the first castle.  

View of Neuschwanstein from Hohenschwangau

Apparently they are quite strict, and if you miss your tour time, too bad.  We didn’t want to find out how strict.  We were early and ended up killing time outside the entrance until it was time for our tour.  We had an excellent tour guide, who took us through several beautiful rooms as he told us more about the life of this fascinating King Ludwig.  Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside the castle--we’re pretty sure this is more for the reason to keep the groups cranking through, rather than for protecting the artifacts inside!  The tour lasted about 40 minutes, and we knew that we had to make it to our other tour time for Neuschwanstein at 12:55, exactly two hours after our first tour started.  The map claimed it was a 50 minute walk up to Neuschwanstein from Hohenschwangau, plus we wanted to grab a bite to stave off Ewan’s hungrumpiness, which was already setting in, which didn’t leave us a whole lot of time.  We walked down the hill from Hohenschwangau to the little touristy village full of shops and sausage stands surrounding the ticket center where we grabbed a very quick bite.  We were worried we would be late, so we hoofed it as fast was we could up a very steep path to the other castle and arrived, sweaty and breathing hard.  

Soon, we joined about 60 other English speakers and were led through many incredible rooms including the King’s bedroom, in which it took something like 14 wood carvers four years to complete the intricately carved bed and other furniture in the room.  I was most impressed with the Byzantinesque throne room, with an incredible 2,000 pound chandelier, and stunning mosaic floor (covered up by protective plastic, of course).  The throne itself was missing, however, as it never was built!  An interesting fact we learned from our trusty guide Rick Steves: King Ludwig spent 17 years of his life building this dream castle, and only lived in it for 172 days!  The powers that be declared him insane and removed him from office, and he was found dead two days later, reportedly having drowned, though many believed otherwise.  After his death all construction stopped, and even though only a third of the castle interior was completed, tourists were clanging at the door to come see it just six weeks after he died.

We hiked way up to that bridge!

Both tours were fantastic, and though we had hiked enough hills and climbed hundreds of steps within the castle, we weren’t yet done.  After a well-deserved ice cream break, we continued to hike up the steep hill another 15 minutes past Neuschwanstein to Marienbrüke (Mary’s Bridge), a steel and wooden bridge spanning an incredible steep, narrow gorge, which offers a perfect and unobstructed view of the castle.  Here we braved an obnoxious mob of shoulder-to-shoulder tourists, pushing, squeezing, to press their way onto the bridge up to the railing, where they could be rewarded with the most stunning view of the castle and snap their winning photos.  

View looking down from the bridge

Fairy tale castle, as viewed from Marienbrüke

Yes, we did too.  And it was worth it.  Our legs were sore, our feet hurt, and we were exhausted from the amount of hiking we did over the course of the day, but our hearts (and our cameras’ memory cards) were full of magical memories.