German Road Trip Part 3: Castles, Breweries, and a Concentration Camp

Our 2nd to last day in Germany was spent seeing two well-known castles, the Hohenschwangau Castle and the Neuschwanstein Castle. Both castles are in a village called Hohenschwangau near Fussen. The Hohenschwangau Castle was where King Ludwig II of Bavaria grew up and the Neuschwanstein Castle was built by the King as an homage to Richard Wagner, a famous German composer, and was the inspiration for the castle in Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle.

As we approached the castles, we couldn't help but notice the massive mountains that were surrounding us. The castles themselves were large, but the mountains dwarfed them by comparison.










There was a small village at the base of both castles, so we strolled around as we waited for our guided tours to start. Then we headed up to the Hohenschwangau Castle first. We weren't allowed to take photos while inside, but we were able to see all the private rooms of King Ludwig II and his parents, King Maximillian II and Princess Marie of Prussia, and were able to take a few photos of the spectacular views surrounding the castle.

 After the hour long tour of the castle, we headed directly over to the Neuschwanstein Castle for another tour. The hike up the hill was long and it started to rain, but we were surrounded by some beautiful trees and views, and were able to make it inside before we were too soaked. Once inside, we, again, weren't allowed to take photos, but we saw a lot of the banquet rooms and bedrooms, and at the end saw a short film about the potential plans King Ludwig II had for the castle, but was unable to complete before his death. Then as we were leaving, we saw the Marienbrucke (Mary's Bridge), which provides spectacular panoramic views of the Neuschwanstein Castle and the surrounding mountains.

 After our tour, it was still raining, so we bought two ponchos and decided to head to the Marienbrucke to get some more views of the castle.  The hike was long and uphill again, but well worth it for the views. We didn't spend too much time on it though as the drop to the river below was stomach-lurching and the tons of tourists and rain made it a very shaky experience.

Thoroughly soaked, we said goodbye to the castles, got back to our car, and drove to a brewery called Kloster Andechs Brewery & Monastery. We sat in the traditional German beer hall, ordered two of their Doppleback Dunkel beers and shared a large pretzel. The warmth of the beer hall, the rich taste of the beer and the salty pretzel was perfect after a day in the cold rainy weather.

We walked around the rest of the property, seeing parts of the monastery and posing with some of the unique statues on the grounds.

We eventually headed back to the car and drove to the town of Aying and checked into our final hotel of the trip, Brauerigasthof Hotel. This hotel was very welcoming, in a charming white house, and had a great restaurant on the main level where we celebrated Travers' birthday one night early. We had a fancy dinner with a french-speaking waiter (he apparently thought since we said we were from Geneva, that we could understand everything he said in French, but he slowly realized we only understood a few words here and there and eventually switched to English).The Ayinger beer was just as tasty as the other breweries we had been to, and coupled with good food, it was a great birthday dinner. And the next morning we were able to check out more of the property and some neighboring goats and geese!

Leaving the countryside behind, we headed to the Dachau concentration camp just outside of Munich. We signed up for a two hour tour of the grounds, and lucked out with a really good tour guide that gave us a ton of history of the camp, of Hitler and of the war.  It was a sobering part of our trip, but we left feeling like we learned a lot and would definitely recommend others to go there.
























To brighten the mood and end our trip on a happier note, we headed into Munich city center, to the famous Hofbrauhaus to have our final German beer and food.





















Getting our fill, we finally headed to the airport to fly back to Geneva. It was a successful road trip, with lots of history, castles, food, and beer.  Now that we're back in the states, we get really excited when we see beer menus that have German beers from the Andechs and Irsee!