Last Day - Munich

We hit Munich a few weeks before Oktoberfest.  I think that is why there were so many versions of the traditional German costumes around.  There were so many varieties at all types of stores, so modern and beautiful, others very traditional like these.

The first thing we did was head to the Munich Residence.  It is a palace where the kings lived for years in Munich.  It was enormous.  It seems like every time a new king ruled they built their own wing.  We were looking at a scaled model that took up most of a room and I couldn't even find the full sized church that we had visited somewhere along the tour.  There were over 90 rooms to visit.  They were all very elaborate and unique.  The styles varied, but it was amazing to see so much posh all in one place.

For me the most interesting thing was the relics room.  These are supposed to all be relics of the time of Christ or the apostles.  This first one is supposed to be from the three parts of the passion.

They all contain bones or sacred pieces inside the glass.

This one is supposed to be the head of John the Baptist!

Next we went to see the Glockenspiel that goes off once a day at 11am.  I was told that there would be thousands of people waiting there every day.  We must have hit a slow day (lucky for us).  I would say that if you have to miss something, miss this.  It was not that exciting.  It was a long wait and then there was not much to see.  Maybe it's just me.

This is the most ornate church we saw - Alam's Kirche.  It was inside a regular building connected to houses on each side.  Overwhelmingly ornate!

Rest and Neuschwanstein

Next, we headed to Munich.  Are you tired yet?  We were.  Once we got to our place just after lunch (Asian from the train station - yum) we needed a break.  We started to head back into town in the early evening, but I forgot our train passes and we were too tired to walk back and forth again.  We decided instead to head toward the grocery store and get a few things to save money since we had our own kitchen and we would be at our place for three nights.

We found a lovely little path to take toward the store.

And along the way there was this little flower garden where you cut cut your own flowers and leave some money in the provided bin.

Our energy levels were starting to dwindle and we discussed skipping out next castle.  We decided that since we had made the journey it was a must see afterall... the next morning we were up early and headed toward Neuschwanstein.

We met this nice couple from Argentina.  They told us their names, but we couldn't understand them.  We hung out with them most of the day and stuck together through all of the craziness that the day entailed.  It turned out that they were working on a piece of track in the middle of our trip.  There was no way around it, so we had to take a bus to the next town and then get back on the train. It took a little longer that way, but we made it.

You buy your tickets downhill a bit and then they give you a very specific time to enter the castle.  You have three choices for getting up the hill.  Horse drawn carriage, shuttle bus or walking.  We opted to walk again.  Our friends thought we were crazy and had a later tour time, so we went off on our own for this part.  

Another amazing view of the town below!

They have the tours down to every 5 minutes, which means your whole group has about 5 minutes to get in and out of each room.  The rooms were incredibly ornate (again, no photos inside - not my photos)  The most surprising room was the cave - he had it recreated as a scene from his favorite opera.  We were pushed through so quickly that is was hard to take it all in.  Things are so ornate in these castles that we always came out completely over-stimulated!

Lunch at a castle cafe.

There is a spot in the castle where you can see another castle across the way.

They have tours of that castle too, but we opted to skip it.

Neuschwanstein from the bus stop.  

Neuschwanstein from someone else's page - there was not a good place to see it from the front again. :)

On the way home we had to do the whole bus thing again.  We found our friends again and we hopped on the bus like last time, but this time it was beginning to take a lot longer.  No one else on board seemed to be disturbed by this, but I kept seeing the road signs saying that we were getting closer and closer to Munich.  They ended up driving us all by bus all the way to Munich.  I'm not sure if there was anyone that wanted to get off sooner, but I was very confused.  There was never an announcement or anything.  I told mom and our friends that they were either taking us all the way to Munich or we were being kidnapped.  I'm pretty glad it was the first.  It was a relief to be dropped off in Munich, even though we had no idea where we were.

Heidelberg and Hohenzollern Castles

Castles were the theme for most of the rest of the trip.  The next day we both woke up super early and decided to go ahead and head out.  Even though we had an hour train ride before we reached Heidelberg we were there by 7:30!  We found a bus to the castle and started the climb.  There was a tram that you could take to get to the top, but we decided to walk since we didn't want to pay more and we were freshly rested.  It was a really steep hill (see the picture of mom on the bench?!).  We saw a sign that said you could go right to get tickets or left to see the gardens.  Since we were so early we decided to see the gardens first, but there weren't any gardens.  I think they were just calling some grass "the gardens."  Mom was really worried that we had to go all the way back around and then back up again.  Did I mention it was steep?

Once we got around to the front of the castle we found the place to buy tickets - they were just opening and getting set up.  We looked at some beautiful figures and things behind some glass before we went and bought tickets.  We learned that although they were open at 8, nothing really happens until 11:15 if you want to go inside the castle.  We had quite a bit of time to wander the grounds.  I asked if they had a sheet that describes the items we'd seen behind the glass.  She looked so confused and I said, "there are some things behind glass that are numbered - can you tell me about them?"  She said, "those are the prices."  They were for the gift shop and not museum items.  ;)

We finally found a place where you could go inside a courtyard.  There was a little cafe inside and a place where you could see the gigantic old barrels that they used for wine.

Since we were just biding time we decided to have some apple struedel, mark another item off of the must eat list!

Just as we were finishing our last bites we heard a big group of tourists entering and the guide was speaking English.  We hopped right up and decided to follow them.  They were with a Viking Cruise tour and the guide was full of interesting information.  We followed them through the courtyard and listened to his stories.  They weren't going inside the castle and we felt done waiting around.  We decided to head out to our next castle.  We also found out that our tickets included the train that climbs the steep mountain for you.  Oh well, we got some exercise and we got to ride it down.

We hopped back on the train and headed to Hechingen to see Hohenzollern Castle.  We had to take a taxi from the station there to our hotel, which was at the bottom of the mountain where the castle sits.

We took another taxi to get up the mountain and then a shuttle bus from the parking lot.  Climbing the mountains can get expensive!  I didn't take this first picture - we were never at a good distance to get this kind of shot.

The view from above was amazing.

Most of the castles have churches within them.  This was a small chapel that is still used today.

Again, we weren't allowed to take photos inside, but I borrowed some so that I could talk about what we saw.  This room is still used today for family parties and things.  The current owner of the castle doesn't live here, but is about my age and has a normal job, a wife and 3 kids.  They visit about once a month. 

The more castles we toured, and saw how the kings lived, the more we realized that we live better than kings today.  We have everything we need easily accessible and the added benefits of running water... without having to make the decisions for a whole country of people.