Germany Day 2 - Hohenschwangau or as Mom would call it: 'Hogenburgerflurgen'.

We started out our first official day in Germany by checking out one of its' most famous castles: Neuschwanstein. This particular castle is so famous that it is always overrun with tourists. As a crowd-hater, I did some heavy duty research and learned that it's best to have an early tour.

So we left our hotel at the ugly hour of 7:20am to get there in time for our early reservation. The road got prettier and prettier as we entered Alps-land, with gorgeous quaint German villages and rolling green hills and stark snow-capped mountains all over the place. SO pretty!

We got a reservation package for seeing two castles next to each other: Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Our English tour guide for Hohenschwangau was first. We had a bit of spare time, so we wandered the outside of Hohenschwangau Castle, which had ramparts with amazing views and really pretty garden areas.

The tour of Hohenschwangau was really interesting and the castle was super pretty. Those royals loved their painted wall murals, and every room was covered in them. There was also ridiculous amounts of ivory, gold, silver, etc. all over the place. What was really interesting was that even though it looked gigantic on the outside, it really was kinda small and impractical: the queen's floor and king's floor each contained one bedroom for each of them and some other rooms that were all interconnected. No privacy in that world! Of course, it WAS only their summer "cottage", but it was still kinda cramped living quarters.

We took a horse carriage ride up the steep mile long road to the next door Neuschwanstein castle. Mad king Ludwig never got to finish Neuschwanstein castle before his mysterious death (most likely murder by pissed off politicians who hated how much money he was spending on building pretty castles). However, the rooms that WERE finished in this castle were incredible. Jaw-droppingly insanely ornate and gorgeous. Sadly, we couldn't take pictures of the inside. 

The outside of the castle was also incredible, though, so here's a photo of that. After we toured the castle, Paul wanted to walk on the insane bridge because he is insane. It's super high up and over-loaded with tourists. He says the views were worth it. I shall take him on his word.

After all that fun, it was late afternoon, so we drove to the town we were staying in for the night. Paul casually suggested we stop at a "small local abbey" before crashing for the night. Apparently, when you are as tall as Paul, perception of small and large is different. This "abbey" was gigantic and super ornate and overflowing *just* to the point of being tacky with sculptures, paintings, relics, and more. For some reason, no one goes to this building, because we mainly had it to ourselves. For free. If you can see Ottobeuren Abbey, you should see it. It is worth the trip!