Neuschwanstein Ausflüge

The Carl Duisberg Centrum in Radolfzell has almost daily after school activities for students to go on. Notably, last week, they offered a fully organized tour of the Schloß Neuschwanstein near Füssen, Germany. If you’re not familiar, you should be since it’s the castle that Disney used to build the magic kingdom. Perched atop a mountain, Neuschwanstein is one of Germany’s most iconic places. Built only in the 19^th century by King Ludwig of Bavaria, it was King Ludwig’s project and commemoration to Richard Wagner, King Ludwig’s favorite composer. The castle was designed to be as modern as possible for its time, and it included central heating and running water. The castle on the exterior looks much larger than it actually is. This accounts for the fact that the castle was never finished as King Ludwig died in 1886. Since the cost was too prohibitive, the castle was never finished and immediately turned into a museum.

Füssen, where the castle is located, is a small town at the base of the Alps. Only kilometers away from Austria, it basically lies on the border and is the last place of inhabitation before Austria. The peaks of the mountains to the south create a clear-cut demarcation line dividing Germany from Austria. The area is very pretty, with some snow-covered peaks, lakes, streams and forest. The castle lies on top of a small mountain with views of a waterfall and Marienbrücke, and bridge that is made of wood that connects Neuschwanstein to the forests and mountains leading towards Austria.

The CDC organized the whole trip, and the 28 of us rode in a mini tour bus 4 hours to Füssen. Our driver was definitely German and quite frustrated with the high traffic load on the roads. In Bavaria, a predominantly Catholic Bundesland, it was Ascension Day so everyone was on holiday. The neighboring state of Baden-Württemberg was also on holiday, and so the autobahn was a parking lot with tourist from all over the country trying to get to Füssen, Italy or Austria. Luckily, I was seated in the back of the bus where there was a small table and I along with some other Russian CDC students taught the others how to play Durak, a Russian card game with no winner only a loser.

Finally, we had arrived at Neuschwanstein only to be surrounded by throngs of other tourist from neighboring European countries. Luckily, since we had reserved our tickets beforehand, we were able to go grab lunch. As one would expect, Neuschwanstein is touristy, with many restaurants and inns overdoing the Bavaria theme. Of course, we ate a typical or perhaps untypical (depending on the way you want to look at it) restaurant. Surprisingly the meal was not overpriced, but it was not very tasty. I had pfefferlinge knödel, which is chanterelle mushrooms in a sauce with a bread ball (similar to a matzo ball). Luckily for desert, my vanilla ice cream finally came with natural warm raspberry sauce. Something I had been wanting and not being able to find.

Our tour through the castle was naturally conducted in German. The castle has only a couple of completed rooms. We saw the bedroom of King Ludwig. The rooms, like in traditionally castles were all interconnected. There was a fairly large chapel, as well as a theatre for Wagner performances. In fact, the castle still hosts concerts in the months of September. We saw the modern kitchens as well as Ludwig’s personal cave room. It was all quite impressive, but much smaller on the inside than it seemed on the exterior.  The most fantastic part of the castle, however, were the views. The tour lasted only a half hour, and the rest of the time we spent hiking through the trails behind the castle. We went to the Marienbrücke, where one has the best view of the castle. Also, I went down to the base of the waterfall with Anna, and actually filled up a bottle with pure alpine water. In fact, it tasted better than the bottled Evian water that was in the bottle beforehand.

 With so much time wasted on the trip getting to Neuschwanstein, we were unable to stop in Lindau for a cup of coffee. We again slept and played Durak on the trip back from Neuschwanstein. Despite fewer cars on the autobahn and roads, the trip home still took a solid 3 hours.