When we planned our trip to Munich, we put a particular place on our list of “must sees”. Though we had been to Neuschwanstein previously, Edward and Amy had not seen this magical place and they were eager to go there. The snow had added to the excitement. How special would it be to see the castle in Winter?

But as we set out on the autobahn, the weather conditions were cause for concern. We hadn’t bargained for thick fog.

Thankfully, as we travelled further - higher - the air cleared somewhat and we felt more optimistic. These smaller roads were less busy too and the driving less stressful. My Hero had not grown to love the hire car!

Small Bavarian villages were still deep in snow but the roads were clear and the view was improving.

I remembered this last stretch from our previous visit and began to play that game we played as children - who would be the first to see the sea castle!?

There it is!! And there too, shining out a little more clearly, the “other” castle, Hohenschwangau. Nearly there.

There were not so many cars in the car park and those that were here, found the guidelines under snow! We left our car by the hut, wrapped up warm and headed off to see what’s what. We had already bought our tickets online at home, so just needed to find our way to the pathway up to the castle.

We had passed a couple of horse drawn carriages driving through the village, with a queue of people waiting to be taken up to Neuschwanstein. Others were walking up the steep incline.

We joined the queue!

We smiled at the “Hybrid” plates on each carriage, discovering when they pulled away that yes, they really were electric-powered. Good really, to think those horses didn’t have to work harder than necessary to transport us up that steep hill.

Half an hour later, we were given places in the third or fourth carriage, we paid our €8 each and took our places.

Our transport took us maybe three quarters of the way uphill, drawing to a halt at a terminus and allowing us the experience of walking that last stretch up to the castle.

There appeared to be no concession to those who had difficulties walking uphill and we didn’t observe any alternative means of reaching the castle entrance either.

Entrance to the castle was timed and we gathered in the courtyard to await our group entry. A screen showed group numbers and at five minute intervals, the updated information triggered the electronic gateway, enabling those with the right numbered ticket to pass through. We noticed that each group was pretty big - estimated about 30 people.

Oh and the first “welcome activity” to the castle is a flight of 16o spiral stairs!

The next fifteen minutes or so was the focus of the whole day and our time walking fairly swiftly through the seven restored rooms seemed to be over in a blink. No photographs were permitted and the large number of people in these fairly tight spaces meant that it was difficult to see everything.

On reading my previous blog post, I realise that we knew all of this already.

There’s an “unofficial” YT video of the tour, which is poorly lit and doesn’t do the place justice, so rather than share that, I’ll simply post the QR code above which will take you to a professional 3D image of the highlight; the Throne Hall and here’s a link to a series of pages for a virtual tour.

The views from up here were magnificent and the weather cleared for us to see the lake and the Alps beyond.

There too was the ochre-coloured Hohenschwangau. Did we want to walk up and visit that castle this afternoon? No horse carriages in service there today, so we’d be taking Shanks’s Pony. On this occasion, we all agreed, a table in the local wirtshaus was more tempting!

So, we took the horse-drawn carriage back down to the village and enjoyed just being here. The snow and a hint of afternoon sunshine added to our contentment and we all agreed that the effort had been worthwhile.

King Ludwig II, the builder of the castle had been a patron of the composer Wagner and if there’s any soundtrack to a visit here, it’s most certainly Wagnerian. Reflecting on our visit, I likened it to a Wagner opera. The process of getting here, the buying of the tickets and the effort of reaching the castle itself required time and effort, the anticipation gradually building to a euphoric fifteen minutes. Every time we sit through a lengthy performance of Tristan and Isolde, we question whether we really needed the preamble; surely we could have just cut to the chase and gone straight into the Liebestod?! But somehow, all of the build up is part of the emotional experience and I think that in many ways, the same was true of our visit to Neuschwanstein!

We left as the clouds were coming down and the light was fading. We had a long drive back to Munich and sadly, tomorrow we’d be flying home. It had been a great trip and we’d packed so much into four short days.

Time for home, though!