Clayton Aus and About: Neuschwanstein

Last Sunday me and the other CBYXers went to the Neuschwanstein castle. The language school, CDC, organized a trip last Saturday but the CBYXers didn't want to go as a big group and we wanted to stretch our little travel wings a bit and venture out on our own so we decided to go on Sunday as a much smaller group. We all went in on what is called a "Schönes Wochenende" train ticket. It is this really neat thing you can do on the weekends in Germany. You buy a 40 Euro (or around that) ticket and up to five people can ride all around the Bundesland all day. It is really great and a super inexpensive way to travel around Germany as each person only ends up paying around 8 Euros. One of our stop overs was in a city called Lindau. It was very pretty and worthy of its own trip. The train station in Lindau had a one legged pigeon in it that basically lived in the train station and was fed by travelers. Super cute.

Lindau

So we went to Neuschwanstein which is located in a city called Allgäu. Allgäu is within walking distance of a city called Füssen. So we took a train into Füssen and took a short bus ride into Allgäu. The city is pretty small and very touristy. We heard a ton of people speaking English (as well as other languages that were definitely not German).

Allgäu with a view of Neuschwanstein (The little white specks in the sky are hang gliders!)

If you don't know anything about the Neuschwastein castle I will give you a crash course. It was built for King Ludwig II of Bavaria but he barely got to live in it as he mysteriously died in 1886 when only a couple rooms in the castle were finished. The name "Neuschwanstein" roughly translates to "new swan stone" and was probably named so because King Ludwig II was obsessed with swans. They were depicted everywhere in the castle. Also, I think that, if ever a castle could look like a swan, Neuschwanstein does a pretty good job at it. The castle is known to some as the Disney castle as it served as the inspiration for the castle in Disney's Sleeping Beauty and also bares a striking resemblance to the castle seen at the beginning of almost every Disney film. You be the judge, look at the pictures below.

The castle, by comparison, is fairly new having been built in the 19th century. The castle is absolutely stunning. Even though it is a touristy thing to see while in Germany, it is worthwhile to see if you are ever in Germany. Better than the pictures of the actual castle are the photos from out of the windows of the castle. The views are breathtaking!

I want to live in this castle!

Looks like paradise.

You do have to walk up a monstrous hill to get to the castle but it is really not that bad and totally worth it. So me and the other CBYXers took a 10 hour round-trip train ride to see Neuschwanstein for about an hour and see Allgäu for about 6 hours. Again, totally worth it!