Today was a travel day from Munich to Switzerland via the Disney looking castle called Neuschwanstein. I seriously can't pronounce the name of the castle for the life of me and I want to spell it like this: Noiswanstine. Vanessa has gotten many laughs out of this today, and rightfully so because I sound ridiculous.
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| Rudi: Ta Da! |
We left Munich early this morning after packing V's small European car full of two suitcases, Kookie's backpack, softball gear for the Devils, plus who knows what. Rudi got to play a fun game of Tetris this morning and he won. Everything fit, including all four people.
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| Bye Ms. O |
We said good bye to Rudi and Olivia and got on the road. Neuschwanstein is about 2 hours southwest of Munich. We drove through the country and arrived at the castle town around 11:00. We got there early enough to beat the rush of picking up our prepaid tickets and then we hiked up the hill to the castle.
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| Hikers |
The whole area is so touristy. There are gift shops all along the road up and you can hear people speaking all kinds of languages. There was a group of Chinese people and Kookie (who understands a bit of Chinese) heard them talking about us. All of a sudden she spoke to them in Chinese, calling them out, and the four men were really shocked that she knew what they said! I love my multicultural group of friends.
The view at the top of the hill was really pretty over the German valley. It is incredibly green and you can see a lake off in the distance.
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| Neuschwanstein (The ugly side without construction) |
We waited around at the top of the hill for our tour to start. The tour lasted about 20 minutes and it showed us most of the rooms in King Ludwic II's home. He died before the building was finished from unknown causes. I was bummed for a few reasons. The pretty side of the outside is under construction and the scaffolding ruined the picture. Also, photography wasn't allowed inside! Boo.
The decor inside was really gaudy and gold. We saw the thrown room, bedrooms, kitchen, entertaining hall, chapel, and servant quarters. All of the rooms had paintings of Bavarian legends on the walls. It was pretty, but very dark for my taste. I don't think I could live in a place like that.
On the hike down we saw another castle that was across the way. I guess there are many castles in the area and it is possible to tour all of them. Kookie told me that she read (in German) that 1.4 million people visit Neuschwanstein a year.
When we were done being tourists, we had to drop Kookie off at the next train station. She is on her way to the Netherlands tonight. It was sad to say good bye, but hopefully I will see her again next summer. It was great to catch up with her! I miss hanging out with Kookie regularly.
From Neuschswanstein, V, Christina, and I ventured on to Switzerland where we will be all weekend for a Devil reunion. Our first teammate that we saw today was Jrene. So nice to see her. She is going to Spain tomorrow so we had to make sure we saw her first before we left.
V, Ch, and I are staying at the Lehmann farm near Lommis. Nadja set us up with rooms and everything we could possibly need for the weekend. Her parents are away on vacation in France and it is like we have our own person B&B. The farm is really cool because the house is huge and it has so much history. It has been in Nadja's family for four generations.
Sooo.... back in Switzerland and I already ate my favorite chocolate. It definitely smells like cows, I can't believe that I was so used to the smell that I didn't notice it while living here! Looking forward to a fun weekend of catching up with friends and probably some partying.
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