A German & Austrian Trip in 2001 - 2
The Schwangau Castles

Wednesday 12th September 2001

Schwangau is 3km North-East of Füssen. I drove to Hohenschwangau (sign before you get to the village), parked (7DM) & booked timed tickets. Meanwhile, we looked round the gardens of this smallish chateau. It was a dull day with bits of rain. Hohenschwangau is poky inside but a lot of fun & so was the guide. You cannot take photos in the castles, hence the poverty of this page. The tickets are (I think) 12DM per castle but the tour is rather rushed.

Hohenschwangau on its hill	Window in Hohenschwangau

Expensive coffees (11DM) in Hotel Lisl before walking up the 600' to Neuschwanstein. The path is easy & tarmaced, no mountain track but you can get a horse bus most of the wayThe guide was not so good (although there was one joke about the King was a Queen) & the castle, almost restrained by Ludwig standards, more so than the Linderhof. He only spent 10 nights here, apparently. It is a Wagnerian fantasy with many, not-very-good paintings of scenes from the operas.

Bronze in the garden at Hohenschwangau

Neuschwanstein from Hohenschwangau

Neuschwanstein close to

In the Neuschwanstein Courtyard

We had lunch (bratwurst & sauerkraut) in the hotel (Schloss Wirtschaft) by the castle. We walked back & round the Schwansee, which is very pretty & did have swans.

The weather was lousy, so this is a ripped-off commercial postcard of Neuschwanstein in sunshine, which did not have a copyright statement on it.

Back in Füssen, Avis in tracht. Good clothes are much cheaper in Germany than England.

Then I drove back to Füssen to explore it properly. The best view of the town was from the Fransiscan Monastery, which claims to be at the end of the Romantische Strasse. It was colder, so Avis (meaning, I) bought a Tracht cloak, skirt and wooly.