Neuschwanstein Castle

Edelweiss Resort and Lodge where we stayed for our Christmas Holiday. It's much bigger than this picture represents. Erik was just going after the mountain backdrop picture.

http://www.edelweisslodgeandresort.com/

The Alps

Hohenschwangau Castle
We didn't tour this castle because we just didn't have time or the energy with the kids. This was King Ludwig's Parents castle.
A little snip of info:
Hohenschwangau Castle was built on the remains of the fortress Schwanstein, which was first mentioned in historical records dating from the 12th century. A family of knights was responsible for the construction of the medieval fortress. After the demise of the knights in the 16th century the fortress changed hands several times. The decay of the fortress continued until it finally fell into ruins at the beginning of the 19th century.
In 1829 Crown Prince Maximilian (the later King Maximilian II of Bavaria) discovered the historic site and reacted enthusiastically to the beauty of the surrounding area. He acquired the property in 1832. One year later the reconstruction of the Castle began, continuing until 1837.

This shot Erik took just before we started our journey up the hillside with a gazillion other tourists. It was frickin' freezing out on this morning, in the teens. If you look in the distance on the hillside you will see the Neuschwanstein Castle, also known at the "Disneyland Castle". Anyhow, you have three options to get up there, horse and carriage ride, bus or walk. On this particular day it turns out the road was too icy for the bus. Soooo that meant no bus ride us, shit! So we thought to ourselves, carriage or 30-40min walk up a hillside with two kids. We decided we were going to do the carriage ride until we saw the line of people waiting. We looked at one another took a deep breath and headed for the road to start walking. We had one backpack carrier for the two kids because our 2nd backpack was in our household goods. We opted to leave the stroller in the car, wouldn't be able to take through castle stairs etc. So that meant carrier for one and haul the other uphill for 30-40min. Walking turned out to be much faster than waiting in the freezing weather for a carriage ride anyway. It was rough but we made it, barely. Did I mention it was really really cold out? I don't recommend doing this on a cold icy morning.

This is a view shot from the road we were walking on.

Looking up at our destination. We felt like we were never going to get there. It wasn't a fun journey up the hillside that's for sure.

This was taken from standing in the "waiting area" for our English tour to begin. Your tickets have group #'s on them. Once they flash your # up on the sign then you can go into the turnstiles for your particular language tour. I'd recommend "Googling" it and seeing some better picture shots of it.

St. Mary's bridge (Marienbrücke) off in the background. Wikipedia has a really need picture of the castle looking from the bridge.

This is a church in Fussen, Germany. We pulled over on our way home to eat our food in the car and Erik thought it was cool to see the sun coming through the windows. It was a charming little hillside village/town but we didn't have time to get out and stroll. Besides, it was cold out, did I mention that yet?