Day 11 Eurowinter 2008: Füssen and the legendary Neuschwanstein castle

This is the day I’ve been waiting so long for! The legendary King’s castle of Neuschwanstein!!! The trip from Rosenheim isn’t that easy. From Rosenheim we had to transit in mighty Munich, then transit again in some alien place called Buchloe only then in Füssen where the legendary Neuschwanstein castle is located. Neuschwanstein is pronounced like Nosh-vahn-shtein, literally translated as New Swan Stone.

And surprisingly, when Suhaili, Hatimi and I arrived in Füssen’s train station, we met other 5 Malaysians, three of them specially came from Prague and the other two are Hatimi’s friends who are studying in Germany. So we all joined together in one group.

The view of the mountains and the castles and the lake is very very superbly superbly majestic!!! We climbed up to the castle and went inside (and I couldn’t tell whether our tour guide was a dude or a chick), but unfortunately for us, no photos inside, except this model of Neuschwanstein.

While the close view of the castle is totally appreciated, we decided to climb another hill to view that legendary castle of which Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle got the inspiration! Then we got to the Marienbrücke (Bridge of Mary= Jambatan Mariam) where the view of the castle and the mountains is much more spectacular!

Then, we descended the hill and went to the Alpsee, a lake located between the valleys near the castle Neuschwanstein, which is so pretty it made my life that very day living in a perfect fairy tale! The dude behind me in the pic below has been to this place EIGHT (8) times!!! So he was our tour guide. The castle on top of the picture is Hohenschwangau (High Swan), another castle nearby.

Here are the guests who joined us from Prague.

I am so obsessed with this place I bought mousepads picturing the castle, five million fridge magnets and postcards of the castle, and the Neuschwanstein poster itself! Don’t ask me how much I spent!

The day’s trip was my very last day in Europe for this season, and very enjoyable for the 8 of us. During our long train trips back to Rosenheim, we played poker

Day 10 Eurowinter 2008: Salzburg

At first, I thought this season’s Eurotrip is only consist of 3 countries (Germany, Czech, Switzerland), but then I was tripped to go to the 4^th one: Austria. Staying overnight in Rosenheim in one of Hatimi’s friend’s apartment, Salzburg (the city in Austria) is only an hour away. Still, we used Bayern Ticket which saves me lotsa euros!

As usual, we (Suhaili, Hatimi and I) walked in Salzburg’s Old Town.

There’s nothing much to do in the small city of Salzburg, but being a castle-hunter, there is a real good castle located on top of an alpine hill (542 m), the Hohensalzburg Fortress (Literal translation of Hohensalzburg is High Salt Castle). An of course the view from top is always majestic and priceless. Ascension to the fortress is by funicular.

After descending from Hohensalzburg, went for a second to Mozart’s birthplace (Mozart Geburtshaus).

Then ate dinner in superbly expensive Nordsee, got lost in Salzburg’s village and went back to Rosenheim.

Heheh. The trip was real good. Well, if you are touring Bavaria, Salzburg should fit in your  itenerary.