We got up early, ate breakfast, and headed out to King Ludwig’s castles. We didn’t think we were particularly early, but seemed like some of the first people there. We got our castle tour times, then proceeded to hike up to the first castle. It was not far at all. There were mostly steps to walk up.
The tour guide was a young blonde girl. She was really very friendly, perky and entertaining. Very open to questions as well. The castle was just beautiful. About the time the tour began, Sophie was whiny and ready for her nap, so I ended up nursing her on-the-go during the tour where she fell asleep in my arms.
Tour 1 began at 9:15am and Tour 2 was at 11:15am. I was a little worried about how we’d get between the 2 castles so quickly, but it wasn’t a problem. There were horse-drawn carriages lined up on the walk ways, and it seemed a bit tempting to take one, but we really wanted to hike (I was missing my exercise). It was a good hike up there, and although it was sprinkling lightly and kind of a cold damp morning, we were hot by the time we got to the top. There were so many elderly people hiking up there it was amazing. I hope I am able to hike up a walk that steep when I am that age! There were some little trinket stands on the trail up there, so we got a Coke bottle for one of Marcine’s co workers who collects them from different countries. There were lots of people smoking at the top, which cracked me up. I can’t think of anything more refreshing than a smoke after a hike!
This tour was awful! There were at least 40 people in our group and we couldn’t hear the tour guide at all. It was very hard to walk in the rooms or find a space b/c of all the people. And Sophie was again ready for a nurse and nap, so I did my on-the-go action again. After the 4th And did I mention, that when you enter the castle, you have to hike up the spiral stairwells in the circular spires? room, I heard the tour guide say, “That’s the end of the tour”. I was like, are you kidding? It was crazy. The castle was just huge, but we hadn’t seen half of it. The king only lived there for 10 mos. And the castle was never finished, but still!
We stopped at the café on the way out and I had, what else, a piece of Black Forest cake! Yummy. We had stocked up on fresh baked pretzels at the bakery next to our hotel that morning, so we broke those out for Sophie.
The hike down from the castle was the best part of the whole tour by far. We found a little trail that led to some steep steps through the woods and could hear rushing water through the woods. We got to the bottom and could see a big rushing water fall! It was so cool. We continued the hike, and it was pretty wet and scary. At times, the trail was steel girders driven into river rock, suspended above the rapids! YIKES - you could see right through the steel grid you were walking on. It was just beautiful. At the end, the water was driven up a ramp to power some sort of logging operation.
Once in the car, she fell asleep immediately. We then drove to Fussen, which is a super cute downtown. The old downtowns in the small villages have pedestrian only areas which are really nice for strolling down, but not that easy to find parking. We put Sophie in the stroller asleep, and strolled around the town. We ate a nice lunch at a place that had a good non-smoking room. Passed by a place called Schnee-ballen. It smelled like a donut shop, but had these huge balls of something, kind of rolled, then dipped in various icings. I asked what they were, and the guys said Pancakes. I felt I’d be sick if I even tried one, so we passed.
After we got Sophie’s teddy bear, she was acting wild in the stroller. She was hurling herself back and forth, and hurled herself right out of it onto the sidewalk! She got a nice fat lip from that, and earned herself a tight buckling in for every subsequent stroller ride.
That night we actually ate dinner at the hotel restaurant, NOT in our room. Sophie was finally adjusted to the time.
