Neuschwanstein castle often called the fairy tale castle is very well known. Hohenschwangau Castle is considered as the smaller less beautiful castle but still worth visiting as they are generally part of the tour ticket you buy. From Frankfurt, the drive to Fussen where both of the fairy tale castle are located will take around 4 hours. Quite a long but still worth the effort. Recommend to be done as a 2 days trip with few stops in between.

From far, we can see the famous Neuschwanstein Castle standing on a hill top.    
fussen germany
    In the small towns of Schwangau and Füssen, a cottage tourist industry was built to handle the thousands of visitors daily. This is in fact, a tourist village.      

fussen germany

The tourist village was set away from the towns so that the downtowns themselves didn’t get overrun, allowing there to be a whole village built complete with huge restaurants and fast food imbisses, souvenir stores, and a massive ticketing center for the visitors.      

After buying the ticket, we didn’t walk straight to the Neuschwanstein Castle, but to the nearby Hohenschwangau castle, which serve as a secondary castle in the village. We should visit the less ‘magnificent’ castle before the more ‘magnificent’ castle, in order to keep a high mood all the time. 

Hohenschwangau Castle - Germany

 Hohenschwangau Castle is a 19th century castle in southern Germany. It was the childhood residence of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and was built by his father, King Maximilian II of Bavaria. *    

Hohenschwangau Castle - Germany

Hohenschwangau was the official summer and hunting residence of Maximilian, his wife Marie of Prussia and their two sons Ludwig (the later King Ludwig II of Bavaria) and Otto (the later King Otto I of Bavaria). The young princes spent many years of their adolescence here.

King Maximilian died in 1864 and his son Ludwig succeeded to the throne, moving into his father’s room in the castle. As Ludwig never married, his mother Marie was able to continue living on her floor. King Ludwig enjoyed living in Hohenschwangau, especially after 1869 when the building of his own castle, Neuschwanstein, began only a stone’s throw from his parental home. After Ludwig’s death in 1886 Queen Marie was the castle’s only resident until she in turn died in 1889.

Hohenschwangau Castle - Germany
  Walking up to the Hohenschwangau Castle. The staircase is not too long nor steep, piece of cake for all of us.    
Hohenschwangau Castle - Germany

This castle had surprised me, it looks very modern. Isn’t castle suppose to look very old and spooky, like the castles in England? Ok, I must clear the stereotype perception about castles.    

Hohenschwangau Castle Germany Garden
The black swan fountain…    

Hohenschwangau Castle Germany Garden
and the lions fountain. A weird combination.  

Hohenschwangau Castle Germany Statue

The way the tickets worked was noteworthy. Anyone visiting for a quick dash up to the castles will be disappointed. Both castles require guided tours, and the tours are assigned (one could not pick and choose the time). Tours began every five minutes with certain tours being conducted in English and special tours available in certain other languages. On average, the assigned tour would begin about one to two hours after the time of the ticket purchased. While that sounded like a lot of time, in fact it wasn’t. Getting to the castle could take the whole time.

Hohenschwangau Castle Germany Fountain

Our tour was scheduled at 10.15 am, still have 20 minutes to go.    

Hohenschwangau Castle Germany

While waiting, there was nothing much to do at the courtyard except taking photos here and there…  

So much time there that I could set my camera to auto shot mode…and took pictures for ourselves to kill time.  

The 4 of us, in one fine day (22-July-09).

Hohenschwangau Castle Germany

When our time came, we walked over to the other side of the castle, and waited there for another 10 min.

Finally we were leaded to go in to the 1st room in the castle. Of course, everything inside the castle are priceless antiques. The visitors are not allowed to touch anything. Also, photography and video recording is strictly prohibited.  

Anyway, I risk-my-life to snap a few photos when the condition was safe to do so (hehe…).
  *

Most of the rooms are very spectacular, especially the paintings on the wall. In the eyes of a layman (like me), every paintings in the rooms are so beautiful, like created by Michael Langero, OK.   Vincent was actually trying to decipher the paintings on the wall. In one room, I think he has cracked the story behind the painting. Amazing.   We left after around 1 hour. Now we were excited for the next castle – the fairy tale castle  

12 Responses

  1. MY/KS,

    Really nice to see all the photos. Do let me know how I can contact you as your old contact number and email doesn't work anymore.

    Sii Jing

  2. Hi Sii Jing, thanks for dropping a message here.
    I have sent an email to you to update our contact number. Please check. Thanks.

  3. Fionne, thanks. I like my new look too.

    Actually there are many free blogger template for your selection out there.

    One of the links : http://btemplates.com/
    Just download the template you like and follow the instruction will do.

    If you have any problem, please beep me in MSN.

  4. Hello!

    This layout is very nice. simple and tasteful.

    this post definitely has 1 "best picture of the year" standing out, not one can beat it, tht's the one of you and your hub. so loving, like newly dating couple. sweet!

  5. Thank you Gargles (err? not Gargies meh? you have changed name ah?)

    Yeah, I like this layout too, love it at the 1st sight.

    Well, we are on vacation mah, not much pressure from the surrounding, just play play only, sure look very loving lo. At home ah, sometimes he will kick me, and sometimes I will bite him wo…

  6. Hi Jessie……very nice blog! Enjoyed your writing all the way. I found you blog after searching in Google about the temperature in Chimelong in December and I've found that you have been there in December last. I am planning to visit Chimelong with my family (2 adults + 1 daughter aged 12 + 1 son aged 6)this December and would like to ask you if it is a comfortable experience in terms of the weather… How cold is it during that period? Do you think it will uncomfortable, particularly for a child of 6 years old in Chimelong during December?

  7. Hi Ali,

    First of all, thanks for reading my blog.

    The temperature by end-Dec is normally around 14-18. I feel that this temperature is just nice for any outing.

    Don't worry, the trip is not tough at all for a 6 year old child. In fact, my son who is 5 at last Dec enjoyed the trip very very much. I'm sure your son would feel the same too.

    Wishing you and family a great holiday in Chimelong then.

  8. Thanks Jessie. Coming from a tropical island (Mauritius in the Indian Ocean), I was a bit worried about the weather. Keep up the blog!

  9. thank you for this! I enjoyed reading this and I hope to follow in your step with my husband and kids too!

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