Fairy Tale Castles

For day 2 of our "Fun for the Kids Weekend", we headed deeper into Bavaria, actually just along the border of Germany and Austria. We were planning to see the most popular tourist attractions in Germany: the King's Castles. They were both homes to "Mad" King Ludwig, and the second castle, Neuschwanstein, was the model for the castle at Disneyland! This was super exciting for the kids, so we put this stop in our special weekend.
Our hotel was in Reutte, Austria and we arrived there after a long day at Mainau Island. We got everybody washed up, but Tori was terrified of the shower, so we resorted to a modified sink bath!

She wasn't really impressed- but we got her squeaky clean.

We got up bright eand early and headed to the first of our fairy tale castles, the Hohenschwangau Castle. This was King Ludwig's home when he was a child:

We made reservations (as this attraction is prone to crowds), and arrived just in time to pick up our tickets. (When I say "just in time" I mean that I hurtled out of the car and sprinted 1/2 a mile to the ticket office to pick up our tickets while Matt found parking and got the kids out, and then jogged the 1/2 mile back to meet them) From the ticket office, Hoehenschwangau Castle is a ten minute uphill hike, so we took off right away. Here we are on the way up!

Hohenschwangau Castle:

After the tour, we stopped to take some pictures of the magnificent view:

I have been on the hunt for a cute family picture in Europe that might be usable for our Christmas Cards. But it is trickier than you might think. The right backdrop doesn't always line up with nap times and happy times. I had high hopes for these pictures near the castles. But leave it to our Daphne to ruin a good shot with her faces! She was in a very interesting mood that day, and being photographed was not really one of her priorities ...

My Boys!

This one turned out decently- other than Miss Tori who had much more important things to see than the camera!

On the way back down, we stopped at this glorious lake for some individual portraits. Look at the water! That is one of the most breath-taking parts of Austria and Switzerland. The water is the most magnificent shade of blue-green-turquoise. I always tease that they put food coloring in it, which the kids think is hysterical.

Matt and I wanted to get pictures of just eachother-- I don't know why- I guess because we like eachother or something... I feel like I look really akward here. I felt akward without a baby on my hip or a child near me. Wonder what will happen when they all move out...

And then I wanted one of Matt. Most people know I am not the photographer in the family- I usually defer that responsibility to Matt. But I wanted a really great shot of him in front of this gorgeous lake- something I could put in my office or in my classroom or something. And I couldn't get the right back drop behind him. Finally, Matt said, "Laura, have you even taken one picture?"
"No." , I responded.
We were trying to hurry so we could get to the next castle and I kept sending him back and forth for a picture. So I finally got his, "Laura, just take the flippin' picture face!"

We got to the bottom, near the ticket office again and realized that the flyer we were given said a person with a stroller needs 45 minutes to hike to the next castle, the big one: Neuschwanstein. We looked at our watches and saw that our tour was to begin in exactly 45 minutes. The hike to Neuschwanstein is not for the faint of heart. It is a steep uphill climb the whole way- they even tell you upfront that it just isn't really possible for you to visit if you are disabled. We decided that if we just walked briskly, we could make it with some time to spare. We always need time to spare because we have small children and have to find somewhere to park the stroller and put Tori in the baby wrap carrier, etc, etc... So we just hoofed it right up the mountain. Princess Daphne and Princess Tori fell asleep in our gigantic double jogging stroller, which made it much harder to push it up the hill. Poor Matt was pouring sweat from pushing that thing up! Isaac was such a trooper- he just kept hiking and never complained. We made it to the castle in like 15 minutes! We're not really sure who would take 45 minutes to get up that hill, but I'm pretty sure that any average person can do it in less than thirty. When we got to the top, we ran into a very large, very nice group of Jehovah's Witnesses, one of whom offered to take our picture. So here we are, all sweaty and winded:

Isaac and Matt in front of one of the impressive turrets:

You weren't supposed to take pictures inside the castle, but you could take pictures looking out the windows of the castle. Even though you can only see the tops of their little heads, this is one of my favorite parts of the day. Isaac and Daphne looked out the window and Daphne said, "Oh. My. Goodness!" It was fun to watch their reaction to the beautiful surroundings!

The tour was fun, but very quick. Faster than the walk up there... The kids loved this one- it was truly beautiful...

Here are a few shots of the outside of the castle:

After the tour, we hiked up an extra 15 minutes to Marienbruken, or Mary's Bridge, which is supposed to be the most magnificent view of the castle:

We were sorely disappointed to find out that the side of the Neuschwanstein visible from the bridge was completely covered with scaffolding. Bummer.

Here is a view of the Hohenschwangau Castle from the bridge:


Here is a view looking down from the bridge, some of that magnificent water I mentioned:

The hike down from the castle was much more leisurely and relaxing. Bye Castle!

After the castles, we had a little picnic and decided to try out the awesome luge ride. The luge course was just 3 km away, and since was had good parking, we thought we would just walk. We started down the road and got about half way and decided that the walk was taking too long for the kids. Maybe it was that, but mostly we think it was the Holy Spirit that told us to have Matt run back to the car and pick us up. He had been gone for less than ten minutes when I felt a drop on my arm and Isaac said, "Oh No! It's raining!" I was standing in the middle of no where on the side of the road with three children and one stroller and no umbrella. After about five drops hit my arm, the heavens opened and the rains came down! I hurried and pulled the shades over the girls and Isaac ducked down under the back part of the stroller. I was scrambling to get the video camera, camera and books covered and out of the rain and I just ducked. Just as Daphne said, "Mommy? Is Daddy going to come rescue us?" Matt pulled up to us and we quickly loaded everyone into the car and got the stroller packed in. The kids were pretty dry, but I was very wet and shivering as we headed out of town...

Some final farewell shots of the Alps in Bavaria. We truly loved this area so much. Gorgeous and calm- truly breath-taking.

After our brief encounter with the rain, the sun started to peek out a bit and we thought we might try to get a boat and go out on this magnificent lake. Poor Matt tried so hard to get us one, but Unfortunately, they wouldn't rent us a boat because of "the weather" they said. Although there were other people out on boats. We think maybe they just weren't too fond of Americans renting their boats. So we took a final picture and went on our merry way back home!

Bye, Alps! Until next weekend.