the royal castles of linderhof and neuschwanstein

last time when we visited munich, we missed the tour of royal castles by king ludwig II. the castles were build on the alps. the most famous one is neuschwanstein castle, which is the real cinderella castle. i have seen some incredibly beautiful pictures of the castle (but later papa said they were computer generated). so we booked the tour very early before we left australia. it was a day tour operated by grey line, including two castles of linderhof and neuschwanstein and a small alpine town oberammergau famous for its wood carving, richly painted houses and passion play.

our tour bus left hauptbahnhof at 8.30am, and took the autobahn to linderhof. there is speed restriction on buses. we drove at 100km, which felt very slow as other cars kept overtaking us. some must have driven at 200km because they passed like a bullet. the tour guide told us that it had been snowing for the past few days, so we would expect a lot of snow on the alps. it was raining on the day, and i regretted that i didn't bring enough warm clothes, so i decided to stay in the bag, and let dandan take pictures.

the linderhof castle is situated in a valley. it took us 10 minutes to walk from the car park to the castle. we passed by a beautiful lake, and saw three swans and some duckies. they didn't seem to mind the cold at all, even with their bare feet. berrie was a bit surprised because she thought only penguins could withstand such cold. the road was very slippery, and a lady from kiwiland fell on her head. she had to have a couple to stitches but was back to the tour later. poor human.

the linderhof castle is small, but inside the castle it is extravagantly decorated using gold. it is too ornamental for my taste. it just doesn't feel like a place to live in. the most interesting design is the infinite horizon of the space created by two opposite mirrors in the living room. although the castle itself is small, all rooms have beautiful views of gardens (125 acres) and alps. unfortunately they are closed in the winter.

our next stop is oberammergau. we took a short walk around the town. it was very quite. we didn't even see a dog. dandan and her apprentices found a good spot and took pictures of themselves. an old man next door must haven't seen such tourists. and he was very friendly watching us.

after the short break, we continued our journey to the neuschwanstein castle. the castle was built on a hill, and the tour guide told us that it took about 40 minutes to walk from the car park up to the castle. somehow i thought we had to climb the swirled staircases, like in the cinderella movie. actually it was a smooth road. but some humans chose to take horse carriages. every two horses carry 12 humans. i don't think they like the job. when two horses passed us, we started to race with them. because we were light, soon we were ahead of them. but horses have more stamina. in the last 100 meters, they overtook us and won the race. they were happy to let us take a photo of them in victory.

there were many humans visiting the castle, even though it was not good weather. each ticket into the castle was give a specific time slot because it was a language specific guided tour lasted half an hour. we arrived early, and had to wait for one hour outside the castle. so we were taking pictures from every angle. dandan found a bridge opposite the castle across a large gorge. under the bridge was a waterfall. we saw two humans standing on the bridge. we were quite curious how they got there and whether the bridge led to a secret entrance to the castle.

the castle was very big comparing to the linderhof castle. we had to climb hundreds of steps to go to the top. most rooms have breath taking views of the surrounding alps. from one window, we could see an alpine lake and another castle (hohenschwangau) near the lake. the mist on the alps gave the whole place a fairy tale touch. the most grand room is a concert hall which was dedicated to wagner, and still used today.

the lake we saw from the window was surrounded by the mountains. we were there before climbing up. the water was even more clear than the water in swiss lakes, perhaps due to the cold. there were three duckies swimming in the lake. they were very round. we guess they are also distantly related to dandan. we had some bread, so we gave it to them. they seemed to like it very much, and played with dandan afterwards.

overall, the linderhof castle and the alpen lake are the highlights of the tour. the neuschwanstein castle is a bit over rated. it would be nice if we could visit the castle at night when there are fewer tourists.