King's Castles in Germany

Our stay in Germany was in the town of Fussen.  This was a great place to rent bikes to get to and from the castles. We were able to get 24 hour bike rental starting saturday night until we left on Monday morning. It was about 5 mile ride to the ticket booth at the bottom of both castles. It was a nice wooded bike path to get there.

This was a building in Fussen that shows the typical painting around the windows in Germany. It is called Trompe-l'oeil  or illusionary facade painting.  Its made to look 3-D to resemble shutters, bricks, etc. This is the High Castle in Old Town Fussen.

These are the two castles we visited on our trip. The son (mad Ludwig) was building his own castle, he would watch with a telescope from this castle in the foreground.

This castle, Neuschwanstein inspired Walt Disney to build his  castle and was much more crowded. We visited both and chose to walk up to each. You could also take a horse drawn cart to the top. This was insanely large with over 360 rooms. Some interesting rooms were the throne room (looked like a cathedral) and his bedroom that he has gas lights installed in the ceiling to look like stars.  He never allowed anyone to live with him except for his servants. Not even his mom.

This is a view of the older castle, Hohenschwangau. I enjoyed all the beautiful paintings on all the walls. They were done in tempera directly onto the walls with beautiful scenes from the romantic art period.  You can see all the hills and mountains surrounding the castles. The lake to the left that we biked around.

This is lake Forggensee that we rode around. It was 23 miles up and down and took us through many little towns. Some were beaches  with people sunbathing in the water, campgrounds, and little cafes with great views.

It was a 3-1/2 hour ride with amazing views of the alps surrounding us. There were a few uphill strenuous parts but we all made it. It was tricky finding the route at times.