Princess Day

Monday, 18 May: Princess Day at Neuschwanstein Castle

The day began by us waking up bright and early to our alarm clock. Normally, this is quite unpleasant, however we were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Why you might ask?! Because it was our long-awaited for Princess Day! The weather outside was wet and gloomy, thus preventing us from wearing our dresses and the prospect of rain was hanging in the air. There was a slight confusion concerning train times, but they ran every hour so we only had to wait for 40 min. We bought some cheap coffees and then relocated and sat in a Starbucks and drank them. We even stole an empty cup sitting on the table next to us so that we looked legit and wouldn't get booted from our comfy chairs. Things like that just can't happen on Princess Day.

Finally, we were off! There was a layover in the town of Buchloe which would take us to Fussen and we almost missed our train-switch as we were deep in conversation. Luckily the train conductor signaled to us that this was our stop. After our arrival in Fussen we caught a bus to Schwangau. The scenery was spectacular on our way up and was enhanced by the misty clouds that sat amidst the castles. We bought our tickets for the castle tours and then prepared ourselves for the 35 minute walk up to Hohenschwangau Castle. This was the first of the two castles and was the hunting lodge and summer home of the Vavarian royal family. It is also where Ludwig II, who went on to build Neuschwanstein, spent his childhood. While waiting for our tour to begin, we commented on a fantastic German hat which was recently purchased by another woman in line. A Canadian man behind us heard us and made a joke, saying that the first two people to the castles this morning were given one free. He and his wife were pretty cool. How do you like them Candadians, eh!?

Our tour guide at Hohenschwangau was hilarious, we enjoyed his dry sense of humor. The castle's name translates into 'the land of the swans.' The area is also where Swan Lake originated. The inside of the castles were spectacular, but it's difficult to recount their spendor on account of not being allowed to snap photographs within their walls. There were horse-drawn carriages that trotted paying customers to and from the magnificent manors-- nothing is funnier than a big group of Harley bikers loading up into one of these. As appealing as this sounded, we instead walked our happy asses up both hills for a planned 1-hour hike. As a reward at the top of Neuschwanstein hill we bought ourselves some pink princess ice cream... mmm!

After we finished with the tours we headed back down to catch our bus back to Fussen. When we got back to Munich we ate some dinner at the Subway in the train station. We were in no great hurry to get back to Antonio and his "different" sort of outlook. When we returned, he reluctantly watched the movie Hitch with us before calling it a night and we once again slept Willy Wonka style on his couch as we had been doing the past couple of weeks on KJ's single bed in Milan.

And slowly, our minds drifted off into a slumber about our own Happily Ever After.

<3