Day 3 Schloss Neushwanstein

Day 3 was the biggest day out during our stay in Germany. A visit to Schloss Neushwanstein - Neushwanstein Castle. As you know it is the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle and has appeared in several movies. Its building began in 1869 by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as a homage to Richard Wagner, the opera composer. The castle was never completed due to a the sudden death of the king. It is now open to the public and apparently over 1.3 million people visit there annually. Yes it's a must see when you visit Germany for sure!!

Maike and Hans kindly did all the driving for us. We got in two separate cars, the girls car and the boys car. We headed to Munich then down south to Fussen. The drive down there was very pleasant. Maike's girls were singing German Christmas songs and Ashley was half asleep so Maike and I had good catch up chats. I didn't know there were no speed limits on the highway in Germany until Maike told me she was driving over 130km/ph! The road was extremely smooth so I didn't notice how fast we were going. 

Such beautiful scenery. 

After 2 1/2 hours drive we got to the bottom of the castle. We had some snacks before heading up to the main event. However, we didn't know there was a loooooong queue at the ticketing office and we had to wait more than an hour! We know know if we go back again we have to queue up as soon as we get there.

To get up to the castle we decided to take the horse carriage instead of the bus. The castle is at an elevation of 800m (2620ft) - very very high!!

We absolutely loved the ride. Being in the forest and looking at beautiful trees and changing leaves was so relaxing. We also had a good view of Schloss Hohenschwangau which was the childhood residence of King Ludwig II and was rebuilt by his father, King Mazimillian II of Bavaria. We didn't visit it as we thought it would be too much for the kids to visit two castles in one day.

Even with the help of the horse carriage we still had to walk a bit to get to the castle.

Almost there but not quite yet...

Stunning view from the lookout:

Finally we were there. Oliver was extra excited as he is now very into castles and knights.

We were given a time for the tour so until then we had a good look around the outside of the castle.

Three musketeers:

Group photo time. This must be the only photo we got both families in during our stay. 

Beauty and the Beasts:

Unfortunately we weren't allow to take any photos inside the Castle. But you can see how it looks here. It was very very luxurious - you can sort of tell why the King ran out of money. Sad thing is that the King only slept 11 nights there!

We stopped at a cafe inside the Castle - this is the view from the balcony. Just stunning.

Later we walked to the suspension bridge in the middle of this photo.

It was quite a walk to get to the bridge. The ups and downs were quite hard for the little people. 

Fantastic view of the Castle. 

We were very happy with the visit. The boys enjoyed it too. Somehow they still had lots of energy after lots of walking!

Our day didn't end here. We continued our journey up North towards Ulm. Let me blog about it on the next post. 

Bread heaven

I was very excited each morning to have breakfast (even though I was always the last one to get out of bed...). The bread in Germany was so delicious! Hans was very nice and walked to the bakery most mornings to get us fresh bread. One morning Matthew and I managed to get there too.

It was still dark and pretty cold but we both enjoyed the walk.

Oliver was certainly addicted to the sugar brezels (pretzels). The boys were very impressed to have two breakfasts each day. Helen leaves to school early in the morning so they had a light breakfast with her. Then later when I got up (...) we started another breakfast. Hence two breakfasts. They are convinced it is a German tradition to have two breakfasts.

Day 2 - Into the Munich city centre

On the second day we had typical German winter weather - gray and cold... But that didn't stop us going into Munich City for some sightseeing and shopping (of course!).

It took us only 20min on the train into the city - nice and easy:

When we came out of the train station we were outside one of the famous department stores - Galeria Kaufhof. This department store had a big floor area selling "Steiff" - a very famous toy company which produced the very first teddy bear in the world. All the teddy bears are handmade by craftsmen.

The kids were very excited. All the animals were moving, the details of the Winter Wonderland was amazing! This display put us right into the Christmas spirit - I loved it! We stopped at the same display on the way back too. The kids just couldn't have enough of it. Oliver later told me off for not taking any videos of all the animals - yes, I really should have.  

Our first spot to visit was Marien Platz & Neues Rathaus. The tower is 85m high and was built in amazing neo gothic style. We managed to see the famous marionette clock move and play music. It apparently goes only 4 times a day so we were lucky to see it :)

Waiting for the clock to go:

Group selfy!

Matthew and I always enjoy walking in the market when we visit a new country. We walked around Viktualienmarket. It had some nice Christmas colours already!

Luca especially enjoyed the German potatoes:

Then we walked around Marien Platz.  

We met Maike and the girls for lunch (Helen goes to school in the morning). Where did we have lunch? Yes, you guessed it right. The famous German beer house - Hofbrauhaus! 

We tried lots of traditional German dishes. And big servings of beers!!

After a long relaxing lunch we continued our walkabout in the city. 

St. Peterskirche: We didn't go inside but this is the oldest church in Munich. It has a lookout from which you can get a great view of the city but you need to walk 3000 steps! 

We did go into Frauenkirche, a Roman Catholic church. I would have spent more time if we didn't have some energetic/noisy boys with us... It had so many beautiful stained glass windows.   

There are a few stories about the "Devil's footprint" at the entrance of the church. One of the versions is that the devil made a deal with the church builder/architect to ensure rapid construction of the church on the condition that it contained no windows. But the clever builder tricked the devil by positioning columns so that the windows were not visible. When the devil discovered that he had been tricked he was very furious and stomped in the foyer, which left the dark footprint. Matthew put his shoe on the footprint and it was a perfect match - ha ha ha!

It was very sad to see Weihnachtsmarket (Christmas market) was not open for another week :( I will definitely plan another winter holiday there to visit the market. 

After all the walking and sightseeing we went to Oberpollinger - a very nice department store (2nd biggest floor space in Germany). The kids were entertained in the playground there while Matthew and I zoomed around and did some Christmas shopping. It was only Day 2 and I already found a very good present for Ashley and the boys. Very successful day!