04-09 Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany "Let it snow"

9th April

Neuschwanstein Castle

"And the world turns white"

We woke early to the sound of rain on the window and like true tourists knew our plans were dictatated by time and not the weather so proceeded to catch the train to Fussen to visit the legendary Neuschwanstein castle. The train to Fussen takes about 2.5 hours andwe sat quietly on the train watching the foggy landscape flick past the windows. About 1.5 hours away from Fussen we noticed the rain seemed to float past the window and then we noticed white coating start to develop on the ground. To our complete amazement it was snowing!!!! By the time we got to Fussen it was well and truly snowing with about an inch on the ground. The castle is 5km away from Fussen so we hopped aboard a shuttle bus which dropped us at a little village where we bought our tickets and walked 30mins up the hill to the castle. By then the world had taken a completely Christmassy feel to it. Leafless trees stood white and quiet and snow rested on pinetrees branches exactly like Christmas cards and it was still snowing.We both had umbrellas and gloves and the walk up the hill warmed usgreatly. Still amazed we got to the entrance of the castle only slightly disappointed not to be able to see it properly. It must havebeen 100m visability. The tour of the castle was quick (during peak season apparently the queue is 2 to 3 hours long) so I guess theyneeded to shuffle people through. The castle was built by KingLudwick II around 1880 (though unfinished) we saw the finished rooms -there were beautifully painted scenes on all the walls, huge ornatechandeliers and incredible mosaic floors. The carving on the kingsbed took 4 years to complete! After the tour it still had not stoppedsnowing so we carefully walked back down the hill to the village andfound a restaurant. They serve a drink called Gluhwein - it is a cup warming you up. After some gluhwein and lunch we wandered down tocatch the bus back to the train station and were rewarded with aglimpse of the castle though the snow. I could not help but think that the snowdomes in the souvineir shop were especially poignant on a day like to day