After my brother’s wedding we went on to the Bavarian lakes for a few days. Looking at the map before driving down I couldn’t help but notice that we were very close to a destination I had been itching to take Marco to. I had once been as a child but not since. In my head it was the perfect photo trip for a holiday – if you think of castles in Germany this is what you think of. Schloß Neuschwanstein. Its interior condition is legendary, everything has been preserved in its original state.
Monday morning came and we were on our way. We left the lake we stayed at in glorious sunshine only to drive into a thick wet cloud 3 minutes into our trip. This cloud hung so low that it would stay with us for the entire day. Including the part of the day where we arrived at the castle. We could hardly see it from down below in the car park. But clearly it must be way better up on the mountain, right?
Turned out a low hanging cloud that spoiled the view and all my imagined exterior photos of the castle wasn’t our real problem. 5243794 other tourists were. My little child brain had completely omitted the fact that this was one major, if not the biggest German tourist attraction. And with that came all of the wonderful things that come with every tourist attraction, only much, much worse. We queued for roughly 45 minutes and arrived at the cash just in time to find out that there is no way into the castle on your own, you have to attend a guided tour. And the way up the hill took 40 minute by foot. So we opted for the bus – along with 185 other people. By the time the bus spat us out on the top we were disgruntled with the situation as a whole, felt slightly queasy due to a terrifyingly trip up narrow lanes on the rammed bus and irritatingly cold for a day out in August only to find out that photography inside the castle was not allowed. Since we paid for it we shuffled our way through the admittedly beautiful castle and trudged up the hill a bit more to the “photo point”. After all this is what we came here for. I am sure the view from the “photo point” is spectacular but I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to. This is all I got:
On our way back home I bought Marco an apologetic lunch as well as ice cream and promised him that from now on forward we’d take in our sights from a distance, ideally comfortably sat in a café far away from the masses. You know it makes sense.
4 Comments. Leave new
Oh man. Touri-Attraktionen sind böse. Und sich dabei ertappen, selbst Teil dieser Touri-Masse zu sein, ist fast schon erniedrigend. Wäre Neuschwanstein nicht so hübsch… denk einfach beim nächsten Mal in Hamburg beim Anblick der dortigen Touristen daran, dass Du DORT keiner bist :)
Ganz, ganz schlimm! Zu meiner Verteidigung muss ich sagen dass ich ernsthaft vergessen hatte (bzw. überhaupt nicht überlegt habe) wie voll und Disneypark-Style das Ganze da ist!
Wir hätten einfach ein Hot Dog kaufen und umdrehen sollen als wir die Massen gesehen haben. :)
pretty photos! I remember that nightmare as well. We opted to walk up the hill. I hated every minute of it, but felt very free in exploring everywhere by ourselves.
Thanks, Christine. :)
I did get jealous of people walking up as I stared at them being squished against the window in the bus. But a 20 minute walk uphill with my stupidly heavy photo bag just seemed too much.