Incredible castle......WOW

We put my day off to good use; Neuschwanstein castle is amazing! We took a 2 hour train ride to the beautiful town of Fussen.  If we had more time in Germany, a few nights there would have been great to hike or bike the mountainous and rural area around it. We didn't, so we made the most if our 5 hour stop.  When you arrive at the footof the   castle there is a smaller castle and a pristine looking lake:

We then hiked, up a VERY steep half mile hill to Neuschwanstein.  We had to bribe the kids with ice cream at the top to get them to forgo the bus and hit the trail.  

Stopped by a small trickling stream to cool off:

 At the top is a wooden bridge, and I didn't take a picture, but should have.  Imagine 1000 tourists in a rickety bridge over a 100 ft gorge.  Crazy, but the view was breathtaking:

From there you hike back down a bit and see the castle. No pics allowed inside, but here is a bit from the outside:

We started our hike at the orange roof!

The faces are of a few of the men who built it:

The castle was built by King Ludwig.  He loved Richard Wagner, German composer, so he built it extremely extravagantly, like out of a 19th century theatre set.  Sadly, it took almost 20 years to build, and he died 170 days after moving in.  It's been open to the public ever since.  Walt Disney designed magic kingdom after seeing it.

We decided to take a horse and buggy back down the hill:

The hike and tour took about 4 hours and after we headed back on the train home.  We were up at 6am and landed at 10pm back at the hotel, long but great day. We will all be tired tomorrow for sure.

I have 2 big meetings tomorrow, so I'm going to have to load up on the caffeine I think.   For now, to bed I go, Gute nacht!