We we on the second bus to leave, but luckily we were at the front of the queue and so got to sit at the front of the top deck of the bus! It took us about 90 minutes to get to Linderhof Castle, which was the only castle Ludwig II built that actually got finished. It was really pretty though rather small for a total residence, and the tour only took 25 minutes! He stayed there alone as he never married and was apparently very reclusive and mostly nocturnal, spending his nights reading and walking in the forest (although that seems dangerous) and slept all day!
Unfortunately the rest of the buildings were closed for the winter, and the fountains all get closed over too to protect them from ice damage. That being said, it would have been lovely to still wander but three was snow on the ground! We also didn't have much extra time before we were back on the bus and headed to Oberammergau. Oberammergau translates to "top of the Ammer district" and is a small town known for wood carvings, and their once-a-decade Passion plays! It was just a short 30 minute stop to do some souvenir shopping and have a wander. We bought a few souvenirs, I looked up close at some expensive traditional dirndls, and Richard even made friends with a shop cat!
Then we were headed out again, this time to the main attraction, Neuschwanstein Castle! It's the castle that inspired Walt Disney in his design of Cinderella's castle as well as the logo, and is also in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (it's the castle the Baron lives in - from the outside, anyway). It took us about 60 minutes to get there. We arrived at 1pm and were leaving at 4:30, so we had 3 and a half hours to see the castle. It was also built by Ludwig II, and is right next door to his parents castle. We didn't have time to go there though, as we had tickets for the 3:05pm castle tour. So we started with a quick lunch, from the snack stand (rostbratwurst and currywurst for all!) and a bathroom break before we headed up the hill. We were warned it would take about 40 minutes, but actually we did it in about 25, which was fortunate as it meant we were up at the castle with about an hour to spare. Richard and I decided that it was plenty of time to walk to Marienbrücke.
So we left the rest of my family behind and walked the extra 15 minutes over to Marienbrück, the bridge which overlooks the castle and happens to be the best spot for taking pictures of it. The walk itself didn't take long, but when we arrived there was a queue! The queue itself was so long that we only had a few minutes on the bridge to grab some snaps before we had to go back to the castle, but it was worth it for the gorgeous view.
Then we had to speed walk back to the castle courtyard to meet the family just in time for our tour of the castle interior. To be honest, it wasn’t super amazing, partly because the castle was never finished (they are actually still finishing it) and even the parts that are finished are constantly being renovated, so there was a lot of stuff we couldn't see. The audio tour itself was interesting, but I just don't think it had quite enough for us. Certainly, I think Richard and I would have rather have had the time to walk around outside and explore the exterior more instead. By the time the tour had finished and we had left the shop, there was only just enough time to get back to the bus for our 4:30 departure!
The drive back to Munich was very restful - it took about 2 hours, but given it was now dark and we were on the autobahn, even I was able to fall asleep and take a small nap on the way back. It was a long tour, but it was totally worth it to see those things and it would have been hard for us to do them without a coach to take us. On our arrival back in Munich we headed straight to dinner, as it was already getting towards com. We went to another beer hall, where I had a vegetarian meal (shock horror!) of mushrooms in a creamy sauce with bread dumplings. It was excellent, and Richard, David and I shared an amazing dessert called Kaiserschmarrn (Emperors Mess), which was a sweet egg pancake, caramelised and served with custard, fruit compote and rum soaked raisins. It may have been the best think I ate all trip so far! We did order too much though (despite ordering for 2 people and having 4 eat it!) so we practically rolled back to the hotel afterwards and went straight to bed.
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