As I mentioned in our
Munich post, we arrived to lots of fog in Bavaria.
Also, I have to preface this post with the caveat that this is some of my weakest writing to date on the blog. I apologize. Sometimes it's just so exhausting going through pictures that I don't care about the writing....
Monday we arrived in Bavaria, drove through the castle village and took the opportunity to have some fun on the mountain luge. It was next to empty, and a blast. I can only imagine what it would look like if you could see the mountains behind!
We didn't have hotel reservations and had hoped to just drive to some of the zimmer frei rooms Rick Steves said "abounded" in the area. We only saw 1, which didn't have an opening, so we eventually resorted to booking.com which landed us a wonderful little hotel on a lake not too far from the castles. (Again, what would we do without ready access to internet?) We spent most of the day relaxation, eating, and recovering there.
After intensive weather research, we decide Tuesday was going to be the best day to see the castles (best being a relative term), and woke up early to be there right when they opened based on Rick Steves suggestion for high season. Well, the weather was not nice and there was NOT a line of people. But, I guess it meant we got a private tour of Hoehnschwangau castle. Neuschwanstein is the one Disney based Sleeping Beauty's castle after and the one Nick was most looking forward to. You can see how much we saw :) But the tours were excellent (no pictures allowed) and castles pretty extravagant!
We spent the rest of the day in Reutte, Austria where we stayed the next two nights. It's nestled in the valley of mountains (which of course we couldn't see at all) and very non-touristy. We stayed at a working farm and the family was super nice...we drank tea and had homemade cakes every afternoon, and ate farm fresh eggs for breakfast. Perfect!
Also while we were in the area, we hiked up to the nearby Ehrenburg Castle ruins. Again, super foggy (what's new?), but a beautiful hike along the way.
Wednesday we drove to Innsbruck for the day. I'm sure if you could see the mountains it would be a more impressive city, but it was just a bit too touristy for us. And high end, ski-town type touristy. Our favorite part of the castle gardens, where we had a picnic lunched (packed from our breakfast at the farm!)
Thursday morning we planned to head straight to Rothenburg, but when we woke up and saw no fog (still clouds, but hey we'll take what we can get) we decided to go back to the castle area. We only hiked up and to Mary's Bridge and were rewarded with these gorgeous views!! And 5 minutes before returning to our car? It started to downpour and the fog rolled in again...perfect timing!!
Be sure to check out the rest of our
pictures from this area here. In the rain, we made the drive (and by we, I mean I slept and Nick drove to Rothenburg for the final two nights of our trip.
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