Your Castles Are Good

 We had a pretty awesome adventure today. We drug the kids out of bed at 8:30 am and got everyone breakfasted and ready to go. It was raining pretty heavily outside when we got up so we bundled up and headed out. Today, we headed to Schwangau, Bavaria where we had gotten tickets to tour the 2 castles there. It was a good hour drive to Schwangau so we listened to Harry Potter and took in the gorgeous countryside and picturesque towns. Germany is honestly one of my favorite places.

Once we arrived we had a pretty decent climb up the mountain to get to the castle. We had to hike all the way up to that bright red arrow. It was beautiful and a pretty good climb. Unfortunately, we had to really hurry to make it in time for our tour.

Once inside the castle we were not allowed to take pictures. I didn't know that at first though and I snatched this picture of Cormac climbing the spiral staircase.

The first castle we toured was Neuschwanstein Castle or Swan Castle. The building was designed and built by King Ludwig II. Unfortunately, he was deposed as king (declared insane by several doctors who never examined him), imprisoned and then died under mysterious circumstances 3 days later and never saw the completion of the building, but what he did finish is remarkable. I yoinked some images off the internet.

The image above is the royal bedchamber. Its restoration was only recently finished and opened to the public about 2 weeks ago, so we timed that well.

The room above was the throne room. The floor is a very impressive mosaic. The throne was never actually finished, but it would have sat where the person taking the picture is located.

Ludwig was very fond of color and it is reflected in all the artwork and color throughout the building. The tour guide said his favorite color was royal blue.

The majority of the paintings were of various Bavarian fairy tales. The castle was fashioned after the castles of midieval Europe. We got to step out onto a balcony and take some amazing pictures of the view from the castle. The bridge in the picture was a birthday gift for Ludwig's mother who loved to hike. She was the first woman to climb all the peaks surrounding this valley. Apparently she would wear trousers under her skirt to make hiking easier because it was illegal for women to wear pants.

Here are some more pictures from the balcony.

After the tour we were able to snap some great pictures. Since it was a rainy day we didn't get as good of a view of the peaks that surround the castle as we would have liked, but it was still absolutely stunning.

The castle is named Swan Castle for good reason. Apparently King Ludwig, II loved swans. They were his favorite animal and they are everywhere in the castle; in the paintings, carved in the walls, and even the door handles are shaped like swans.

We hiked back down the mountain and found a hotdog stand. After eating we hiked up to the other castle: Hohenschwangau. This castle was originally built by the Swan Knights. King Maxamillian, II stumbled upon the ruins when hiking in the area. He fell in love with the picturesque area and the ruins themselves so he restored the castle for the royal family to use as a summer home.

We hiked up the smaller hill to Hohenschwangau where we had some pretty excellent views of Swan Castle.

Hohenschwangau is also beautiful. The castle was used much longer than Swan Castle and after the last monarch died was turned into a museum by the royal family.

I grabbed a few more pictures off the internet of the interior. There was a lot more that we saw than I can put on the blog, but a few pictures for remembrance.

After touring this castle we hiked back down and over to the museum. Unfortunately, by this time I had a full blown migraine and the kids were pretty exhausted, so we made it through the museum pretty quickly.

Lucette decided to spend most of the day walking around without arms or with only one arm. We don't know why. She is an odd one.

The kids were also highly amused by the sign that appeared on the bathroom doors. 

Cormac managed to grab a picture of the lake with some swans on it. We stopped at this restaurant for a yummy dinner before the 1.25 hour ride back to our Air BnB.

The whole town felt like it came right out of a fairy tale. The kids said it was one of their favorite days so far on the trip. I think we all loved seeing the buildings and exploring around the town. It was fun to learn some history and some local fairy tales.

When we got home I snapped a picture of Cormac coming up our very overgrown and beautiful driveway. 

One last memory for today. As we were walking down the hill from the first castle the girls really wanted to ride on one of the horse-drawn carriages. They concocted a plan to hijack one. Ammon was to go all "cowboy" on them, whatever that means. Cormac would aggressively throw water polo balls. Azure would use her karate skills. I think I was supposed to stare them down or something. Then Lucette said, "and I'll do whatever I do." We decided that Lu has 2 super-powers. 1. Being really cute and 2. being obnoxious to which Cormac responded, "and she definitely has one she prefers." We all had a good laugh over that. Even Lu thought it was funny. She's a good sport.