Mad King Ludwig's Castles (and some waterslides)

06/29/2011

Just had to start off with this picture of the day:

Tuesday June 28th

We left Berchtesgaden around 10am and enjoyed our drive through many pretty villages surrounded by mountains. Our first stop was Herrenchiemsee Castle. This was one of King Ludwig II's castles located on an island on Chiemsee Lake. I thought this would be a quick stop en route to Steingaden but it took several hours! We boarded a ferry and took a 20 minute ride to the island.

I liked the name of this boat...

After we arrived on the island, we had a 20 minute walk to the palace. The palace was modeled after Versailles in Paris. We were not allowed to take pictures of the interior. We took a 35 minute tour, in English! The rooms were over-the-top gorgeous with ornate golden everything, tapestries, paintings, etc... The outdoor fountain/garden area was a great place to wait until our tour time.

I bought a poster of this King Ludwig exhibit:

Since the whole experience took longer than expected, we ate lunch at the VERY average restaurant in the palace. After another hot walk back to the boat, we eagerly hopped into the air condintioned car. We still had about 2 hours of driving to get to our next apartment. The apartment is located right next to Wies Kirche - about 20 minutes from Neuschwanstein Castle. We were nearly ecstatic to see our two bedroom apartment! It's been fun and all sharing one room for the last nine nights but we were ready for a separate adult bedroom. The kitchen is great too. We went to the store and stocked up on breakfast items and dinner. It was great making pasta and eating at "home".

Our new "home" for four nights is in the house on the left.

Wednesday June 29

The mother of all castles!

We woke the kids early in order to make our morning ticket reservations at Neuschwanstein Castle. After a quick breakfast at our apartment, we drove on to castle land! The first glimpse of the castle is breathtaking. It's too bad it takes around 30 minutes to hike up to the entrance. DD#2 was having quite a grumpfest kind of day. We weren't going to let a four year old spoil the fun! The weather was perfect and we had a great time feeling like we were part of a fairy tale. We took a gazillion pictures but here are a couple:

Another smaller castle off in the distance - Hohenschwangau.

We made a stop on the way out to photograph the new car with some nice scenery.

DD#2 desperately needed a nap and an attitude adjustment so we went back home. DD#1 and I went for a walk around the area and played a couple games on our balcony. Travel Sorry is great!

After nap time, we went to an indoor pool in Oberammergau - a town about 25 minutes away. There was a thunder storm coming in so being indoors was good. The pool was amazing! There were many different kinds of pools including a room with two waterslides. We spent pretty much all our time in this room! It's a good thing that I enjoy a fun waterslide too. The best part was that we almost had the whole place to ourselves. No lines!

After wearing ourselves out, we had dinner at a place that made their own cheese - Schonegger Kase Alm in our little town of Steingaden. We sat outside and had a locally made beer with some fantastic food. We were really hungry!