Day 12 - Fussen

We decided last night that we would drive to Fussen today, so we left as soon as we were ready. There were a lot of round-a-bouts along the roads connecting the towns. We parked in the center of Fussen and took a bus up to the castles. We first toured Hohenschwangau Castle, which was the summer home of King Maximillian II of Bavaria. We saw the music room in which his son, King Ludwig II. Ludwig was a huge patron of Wagner.. We looked at some letters they had written to eachother and saw the piano that Wagner played and composed at.

Next we headed up to Neuschwanstein Castle, which King Ludwig started building after his father died. It was a bit of an uphill walk after the bus ride. Jacob pushed an old lady in her wheelchair up into the Alps. No big deal, it's only Monday. Ludwig had the whole castle built around the idea of fantasy romance. It was all dedicated to the operas of Wagner, which were all depicted there in some way. There were beautiful murals and ornate wood carings, and there was even an artificial cave built to replicate one from Wagner's opera. The tour ended in, fittingly enough, the opera hall. We were then able to walk around some of the unfinnished rooms (only 18 of the originally planed 60 rooms were completed before Ludwig died, putting a halt on construction). We walked back down the mountain after the tour and waited for the bus back into town. We finally got on with what seemed all the other tourists of the castles that day. When we got back to the middle of Fussen we ate some delicious lunch and drove back to Irsee.

Tomorrow we are getting up early to drive to Munich. We decided to take a day to walk around and take pictures and get on with the festivities, just in case we aren't able to on the days we had planned for Oktoberfest.