Neuschwanstein DIY Day Tour from Munich

My first trip to Europe in many years brought about the opportunity to travel to a destination i never made it to previously. Neuschwanstein Castle. I mean I had been to Munich 3 times before. But never made a trip to the castle. I have to admit though 2 of those trips were when I wasn't experienced in independent travel, and the other was when I had sprained my ankle skiing making mobility a challenge in winter. 

Famous for being the Disney Castle yes. But also to me more famous for being the castle from the movie Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. A favourite childhood movie. It wasn't until I was an adult I got to hear of the real castle story with King Ludwig the second. But let's leave that for later.

So how did we make it to Neuschwanstein. Yes we. I was traveling with my friend who did all the planning. So when I say "we" I admit it, I refer to the royal we. I was riding coat tails on the logistics getting through jetlag with google maps and contributing only a vague memory of the bus terminal. 

 So for all the random people reading this. Our total travel trail for the day was this

Walked from hotel in Munich to the Long distance Bus Terminal at the far end of the Munich Hopbahnhof. From there we had booked a Flixbus to Schwangau Neuschwanstein. Not to Fussen. An 8:30am Flixbus to the castle. There's only one of these a day. So plan ahead. Importantly it only takes 2 hours, and if you do as we did by booking early it's cheaper than the DBahn to Fussen and figuring out the local bus to Schwangau. As a guide it was about 15 euro when we went in March 2024.

The bus drops you at the carpark to the town from which everyone walks or takes a shuttle up the hillside. So there's no need to be hiring a vehicle, nor booking the all inclusive bus tours. 

 From the carpark there are indeed shuttles you can take up the mountain, and then they do promote the cool looking horse and carriage for the less mobile. But even those will not deliver to the doorstep. And there was plenty of uphill climbing to be done. Earn your stripes like the masses by taking the slow plod up along the paths to the castle ticket booths, and then actual castle gate. It took about 35-45 minutes including photo stops to catch the breath. 

Remember this is Neuschwanstein. One doesn't just rock up and think you can get a ticket into the castle and just walk in. You need to book ahead, and fit your timing into arriving at the castle gate to when you can go in, and then wait for you ticket group number to get into the castle. In winter the only English Tour was at 12 midday. So with the bus arriving at 10:20am or so, we had about an hour to grab water from a kiosk, and then meander up. If you cheat by taking the bus sure you will be a bit fresher, but there's no sense of achievement, nor ability to compare your walking to that of King Ludwig II. I'm not sure how often those bus shuttles were even running. I can't remember having seen one pass us on the climb. 

The fully guided your takes about an hour. And well there's plenty of walking inside a castle. Think cold circlular stairwells climbing up from level one upto level 4 and everything in between. If those on the horse and carriage or buses even made it into the tour they were going to get wiped out by the physical demands of experiencing the 1800s 

After the castle touring we merely took the local bus for about 3 euros back to town along with the other tourists. Instead of just going back to Munich straight away by train we stuck around using the remaining daylight hours to see the town centre and have dinner. Note there was a small historical area of worth to explore if you're not over historical relics.

The castle itself was quite well maintained. You can't take photos inside. And well the movie never mentioned how much of strapping young man he was. Even less I had read about his actual relationships. Lets just say what did "come out" was it seems good ol  Ludwig II was the biggest fanboy around to the composer Wagner, had a failed relationship with his cousin, and had a thing for the finer things. 




Location: Neuschwansteinstraße 20, 87645 Schwangau, Germany

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stumpy in a coma.

Alrightee I know I say bad things when I'm tired but heck this time its deserved. My Dog Stumpy Buslines has outdone themselves for consistently poor service. I boarded a bus at New Orleans bound for Miami. I knew this trip to be ambitious from the start. 24hrs with 3 connections. Well bus started on time. In fact I commend the guy in New Orleans. He had his bus station running great. We left on time. But now I find myself in Mobile, Alabama. Stuck here for 5 hours all because they over booked the bus. You see the New Orleans bus terminated in Mobile at 10:30pm so we had to fully unboard. Then the next bus came in from Atlanta at 11pm. But it did not terminate. The other people on the bus were able to stay on the bus through re-boarding. It seems that 45 seats from Atlanta were taken through this re-board leaving only 10 seats for the 20 people coming from New Orleans going east. Now I was looking sweet having lined up at number 6 in the line after we got off. But then the bus dr...
Read more

Wet on the way to Weltenberg

Image
Before even booking my trip I spent hours deciding up what I wanted to do. When I decided upon taking a self guided cycling tour the second level of the decision was where? And from there the decision would cascade down. Germany was the country as I am very comfortable travelling in Germany. Then it came down to region. This decision was made by google research on the Weltenberg Abbey . My searching had come across this picture perfect summer cycling day involving the oldest Benedictine Monk Brewery Monastery in the world. In my head it was going to be great. The ride was to be only about 55kms. Then I'd arrive at the monastery do a tour of the grounds, have a taste of their famous dunkel beer, and then hop onto the ferry that would transport me the remainder of the way. 15kms to Kelheim by ferry. And Kelheim itself was going to be another picture perfect town with plenty of history. The day was doomed from the beginning. I left Ingolstadt early as I knew it was likely to rai...
Read more

Coron Island short side trip

Image
In December 2023 I had the opportunity to add to my exploration of the Philippines. A week away tacked onto a work trip. Within this week I planned out a one side destination trip. Just one island, one day trip. So that I wasn't overwhelmed. And well acknowledging there may be other opportunities for more trips later. Yes the prior trip had physically broken me. I'm no longer 25.  I chose Coron Island over El Nido. Not because I knew it'd be better. I had seen enough videos comparing the 2 destinations to figure out you'd be okay whichever you choose. Both are a part of the Palawan region. I chose Coron Island because I could fly out of there easier on the time frames I had. A week away meant I needed to be more direct, in, out, no dilly-dally. There was no time for rain delays, nor contingencies if I had to ferry elsewhere. Accommodation I had read up about had indicated that you need to be in the Town Centre if you want to walk about. And it often was overpriced and u...
Read more