Neuschwanstein

A true fairy tale castle.

Disney actually sent their artists to visit this place and take notes on what a fairy tale castle should look like as they started their classic animations of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Situated part way up a massive hill, and built part-way into the side of it, you can find this place. It was 17 years in the making, and never got finished because the king of the day (Ludwig the 2nd) died under mysterious circumstances.

Many of the views in the images below were taken while we stood on a small foot-bridge that spanned across a waterfall below. The bridge was re-enforced with steel, but was covered only with 2x6's that bounced slightly as you walked on them.

And of course, Matt and I weren't content to settle just for the view from the bridge. We decided to scale up further on the mountain on the other side, which lead to some of the views you see here that actually look down into the courtyard of the castle.

If you get the close-up of the photo of Matt above, you get a good sense of how high above the village this castle is.

If you look at the photo on the left, you'll see people falling to earth with parachutes. This seemed to go on all day, sometimes with as many as four at a time in the sky, but we never saw a plane. Maybe they jumped off the mountain, or were fancy hang-gliders.

The tour of the castle was beautiful and impressive (but no photos were allowed inside).

By way of another contrast between the French and the Germans, In Versailles, every single wall or corner or open area was filled with a painting or sculpture of some royal guy, or their relative, or their mistress, or some battle they pretended to be in. Ludwig, however, decreed that there would not be a single image of him in the castle. One country's leadership was driven by vanity, the other created the castle to be a source of pride for his people.

Take a close up look at the image to the right... The one with the bridge over the waterfall. That's the bridge we stood on when taking the pictures earlier in the series above.

The ridge to the left of the bridge is what Matt and I climbed to get the better photos of the castle.

Neuschwanstein
King Ludwig
Mary's Bridge

[Main Page] [Schedule]
[England - Assorted] [Big Ben] [Piccadilly] [The Eye] [Tower of London] [Westminster Abbey]
[France - Assorted] [Arc de Triomphe] [Eiffel Tower] [The Louvre] [Notre Dame] [The Pantheon] [The Seine] [Versailles]
[Germany - Assorted] [The Alps] [The Hofbrauhaus] [Mittenwald] [Neuschwanstein] [Ratskeller]