Central Europe trip, Post 2: Neuschwanstein Castle

On Wednesday, December 18th, we left Prague (Czech Republic) around noon and set off on the drive to Munich (Germany). Finley slept for three hours on the drive (still a bit jetlagged!), and I used the time to study German using some apps I'd downloaded to my phone. We stopped to fuel up around 4pm and shared a Jaggerschnitzel (schnitzel with creamy mushroom sauce) and spaetzle meal inside the service station. An hour later we arrived at our destination for the next two nights: Russell and Alison's home on the outskirts of Munich! (They are friends from Australia who are living in Germany.)

We ate weiswurst and salad for dinner with Alison and their two children, Bobbie (2) and Annika (1), before going to their Wednesday night meeting with Alison. We briefly crossed paths with Russ as he arrived home from work just as we were heading out the door. The meeting was mostly in German, but we kindly received a whisper mic translation into English, so it worked very well!

The next morning, Thursday, Russ cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast and then Ben, Finley and I set off on our day's excursion: visiting Neuschwanstein Castle! This is a very famous fairytale-looking castle commissioned by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in the 1800s. One of our reasons for wanting to visit it - apart from it being a major tourist attraction in the region - was that Ben used to have a big poster of it on his bedroom wall before we were married!

The drive to the town of Hohenschwangau should have taken about 1.5 hours, but Finley is not so keen on his carseat at times, so it took 2.5 hours. :) Here are some photos from the drive...

Approaching Neuschwanstein Castle

It's not possible to drive right up to the castle - visitors must park in the town of Hohenschwangau and then either walk or take a horse and cart up the hill to the castle. Tickets for the castle tours are sold in the visitor centre in Hohenschwangau, and we were made aware that the tours are run on an extremely strict schedule. We purchased tickets for the 3:25pm tour (€12/adult) and set about ensuring we would reach the castle in time. We waited in line for the horse and cart option, eventually made it to the front of the queue, piled in and paid the driver €6/adult, and set off up the hill to the clip-clopping of horses' hooves echoing through the wet streets.

Hohenschwangau

The other castle in town: Hohenschwangau Castle

After our 20 minute horse and cart ride, we had another 10 minutes to walk uphill before reaching the castle. The view across the surrounding snowy plains was gorgeous, and the castle up close was EXTREMELY impressive and imposing...

The method in which the tours of Neuschwanstein Castle are run is the strictest we have ever encountered in our travels and thus worth a mention! The tours are only 15 minutes long, and visitors are only allowed inside the castle's immediate vicinity a couple of minutes before their tour begins. Everyone stands around watching an electronic sign that shows which tour times are currently being admitted, and when a new number flashes up, everyone with that time rushes (sorry, proceeds in an orderly fashion) to the turnstile below the sign. The turnstile lets one person through at a time, and only after scanning their ticket to confirm their admissibility. I tried a couple minutes too early and was rejected!

Once inside, our large tour group gathered in a room and met our tour guide. He was a youngish man with a soft, high voice and a very strong accent. That, combined with the fact that our little boy was now tired and hungry again and wanted to let us know, meant that I hardly heard any of the tour commentary after all our hours of effort to get there!

It was very interesting to see inside the castle though. I particularly remember the incredibly detailed wooden carving on Ludwig's bed canopy, which fourteen carvers worked on for over four years! (And guess how many nights Ludwig slept in his castle? ...Eleven!) The castle was also equipped with state of the art technology for its time, such as flushing toilets, central heating, and telephones! However, construction of the castle was cancelled upon Ludwig's death in 1886, when only 14 of the 200+ planned rooms were complete. It remains unfinished to this day. We weren't allowed to take photos inside, but this site can take you on a tour if you're interested.

After our 15 minute tour finished, we spent quite a while hanging out in the room where the tours wind up, letting Finley stretch his legs and explore. He seemed to become quite a tourist attraction himself, gaining the attention of various Japanese tourists who came and went as subsequent tours ended. They showed him toys, played with him, and even took photos of him!

All this hanging around meant that we were among the last ones to leave the castle after the day's tours had concluded. Only as we were walking out of the castle did we realise this meant we would probably not have the luxury of taking a horse and cart to the bottom! Sure enough, we had to walk down the snowy hill as darkness fell (and it was my turn to carry Finley in the wrap!). However, it was quite a pleasant walk in the crisp air, and Ben snapped this beautiful photo of the castle...

We finally made it back to Russell and Alison's around 7pm... a few hours after we had said we'd return! Luckily they had recently been to the castle themselves, so they understood exactly how it chews up more time than you'd think a 15 minute tour would take. :)

To be continued...

PS. This is our blog's 500th post!

Central Europe trip, Post 1: Prague

From December 15th to January 8th, we spent a wonderful 3.5 weeks in Europe. We did a road trip from Prague (Czech Republic) to Munich (Germany) to Buchkirchen (Austria) to Bled (Slovenia) to Zagreb (Croatia) to Budapest (Hungary) to Bratislava (Slovakia) to Vienna (Austria) and back to Prague. And although blogging time is pretty much non-existent for me these days, I really want to record a little of our European adventures as we'll soon be off on our NEXT holiday!!

On Sunday, December 15th, we took a taxi to Vancouver Airport and waited for our 1:50pm flight to Frankfurt (Germany). While waiting at the airport, we walked past a bored Santa and his helpers, who waved us over for a free photo shoot. :)

 

Cleaners waiting for our plane to arrive

Our first flight was 10 hours long. Finley waited as long as he possibly could before giving in to sleep, eventually falling asleep sitting upright on my lap! He only had 2 x 45 minutes naps on the entire flight, and spent the rest of the time climbing between us and the bulkhead bassinet, charming the people in the seats behind us, going for walks around the plane in our arms, and taking everything in. He's an excellent traveller!

We landed at Frankfurt at 9am Monday local time, and had a 4 hour stopover before flying another hour on to Prague.

Frankfurt Airport

Upon our arrival in Prague, we picked up our hire car (a black Skoda Fabia wagon) and headed to the Cloister Inn, our home for the next two days. While Ben drove, I was taking photos and exclaiming in rapture at the gorgeous buildings and the rush of being back in Europe. Finley was sleeping, and Ben was trying to avoid being run over by trams.

After finding our hotel and checking in, we all went to bed at 5:30pm. We had a wide awake and jetlagged little man doing some yelling and stair climbing in the middle of the night though!

The next morning, Tuesday, we had a delicious continental style buffet breakfast (breads, yoghurt, fruit, salad, cheese, ham, sausages, boiled eggs, baked beans, juice, coffee) at our hotel before heading out on foot to Wenceslas Square, home to one of Prague's main Christmas markets. On the way we stopped in at a couple of shops, saw some vendors selling wreaths in the street, and admired a few ornate doors.

We spent a while wandering around the Wenceslas Square Christmas Market, enjoying some gluhwein and trdelnik/trdlo, a hollow cylindrical pastry rolled in sugar and spices. We admired a huge carved wooden nativity scene, and listened to a busking panpipe band.

Daycare/preschool kids out for a walk (in the reflective vests)

Gluhwein samples

We also found a smaller market in a little square nearby, where we saw a man forging metal souvenirs such as bells and knives, and admired colourful displays of dried fruit and sausages.

On the walk back to our hotel around midday, we came across a toy store selling wooden toys, painted eggs, etc. We were amazed by the comparatively cheap prices and spent quite a while deciding on some toys to buy. We got a wooden truck and tractor with trailer, and a set of six wooden-headed finger puppets.

While buying the toys, Finley had the undivided attention of three middle-aged Czech shop ladies, none of whom could speak much English but all of whom could speak Baby. :)

After a couple of hours relaxing at our hotel, we set out on foot again to see Prague's other major Christmas market in Old Town Square. Our jetlagged little boy fell asleep as we were leaving the hotel, and didn't wake up again until we got back 5 hours later!

On our walk to Old Town Square, we stopped in at some more little shops, the most interesting of which was full of large wooden marionettes (puppets) - they had all sorts! We also passed a picturesque little square with a few market huts just before we reached Old Town Square.

Old Town Square in Prague is one of my favourite spots in Europe. I had remembered it from our visit to Prague 6 years ago (also when the Christmas markets were on), and the reality of it actually held up to the magical memory (which isn't always the case!). The ornate building façades, the cobbles, the market huts, the clock tower, the smell of roasting chestnuts, the huge Christmas tree, the gothic church, the horses and carriages... I love it all!

In the middle of the square is a raised platform that offers a charming view out across the red-roofed huts and milling market-goers.

After spending a while exploring the market, sampling some honey mead and buying a souvenir red tin cup for Finley, we headed down some nearby streets and found more souvenir markets.

We also found another fantastic wooden toy store, and spent a while deciding on some MORE toys to buy (finally we have an excuse to buy souvenirs!). We purchased a walking duck-on-a-stick and a pull-along caterpillar. Most of the toys we bought this day were intended as gifts for other babies, but we've ended up keeping all but the caterpillar because we like them too much to part with them!

On the way back to our hotel, we stopped for dinner in a restaurant where we were suddenly caused to remember that smoking in restaurants is still legal in some places in Europe. This felt so shocking and unpleasant to us when we aren't used to it, especially when we had a baby with us. We gobbled down our marinated beef rib with corn cob (mine) and goulash in bread (Ben's), and hightailed it out of there and back into the fresh air again.

Finley woke up just as we returned to our hotel at 7pm. At the front desk, the friendly clerk said to us "we've had some complaints about your baby, so we'd like to move you to a room that's further away from the other rooms". This ended up being a MUCH bigger room, with much more space for Finley to roam around... so apart from feeling a bit guilty about the previous night's loud jetlagged antics disturbing our fellow guests, we were pretty happy to have been complained about!

The next morning, Wednesday, we ate breakfast and checked out of the hotel by 10am, but left our car there for a couple more hours while we set out on foot to accomplish one more thing we'd planned to do while in Prague: climb the Old Town Hall Tower. This is the home of Prague's famous astronomical clock, the Prague orloj, which was first installed in 1410 (!) and is the oldest still-working astronomical clock in the world.

We had anticipated having to climb stairs all the way to the top, so you can imagine our delight when, after purchasing our tickets, we discovered we could take an elevator to the top! It felt a bit like cheating though!

A random awesome door in the tower

The elevator!

The view from the top was absolutely stunning. Prague is an incredibly beautiful city, with such ornate and colourful old buildings, and a majestic skyline. I highly recommend seeing the city from this angle if you're ever in Prague!

We made it back down to the bottom of the tower in time for the 11am marionette (puppet) show above the astronomical clock. There was a sizeable crowd waiting, cameras poised, for the hourly show to start. The show was briefer than I had expected, and really just consisted of figures of the twelve Apostles coming up to and pirouetting in the two windows above the clock. But at least we can say we've seen it now!

After enjoying a last sip of honey mead, we walked back to the hotel, collected our car, and set off on the 3 or 4 hour drive to Munich (Germany). To be continued...