CARRIE'S QUEENDOM: Neuschwanstein Castle, Fussen

I’m less active here recently because all the other managers have left the firm and I'm the only one who handles the branch. Of course, I’m facing a heavy load as expected. Feeling so breathless now honestly.

I have so many things that I want to blog but I think it will take forever unless I quit my job. LOL

Okay, this post will be a throwback of my trip to Germany on Oct 2013.

Neuschwanstein Castle (pronounced ‘noy-shwan-stine’. But it's super difficult to pronounce so I always call it Fairytale Castle) is a palace near the city of Hohenschwangau, Bavaria. It is located on a hill top and surrounded by breathtaking mountain and lake views. I believe many of you will find this castle very familiar as it is said to have inspired Disney’s Sleeping Beauty castle that we all love.

Horsedrawn carriage ride is available for you to experience the old-world charm.

Can you spot the castle?

A lovely shop selling all kinds of souvenirs.

Waited super long for our lunch. Didn't know why such poor thing can happen! Hate this tour guide seriously!

Grilled fish with almond chips! It was almost tasteless so we all sprinkled a lot of black pepper and some salt on top of it. T_T

What a clear bright day!

Neuschwanstein Castle, we are coming!

The entrance ticket. Tickets must be purchased at the bottom of the hill.

You can either walk, take a bus or a horse carriage to go up to the castle.

Our tour manager had arranged us to take bus as well as to experience horse carriage. We took bus to go up to the hill but the queue was terrible. So if you plan for a visit, please remember to allow some waiting time especially during holiday.

As the castle was located uphill, the bus did not stop in front of the castle and what we had to do after we get off from the bus was to walk, walk and walk up to the hill.

From the way up we really loved the beautiful view featured the Bavaria Alpsee.

The scenery was superb along the walk but too bad we didn't have much time so it was just a touch-N-go.

Walking up the hill was super tiring and finally we arrived at the gatehouse.

The Neuschwanstein Castle admission is on a time-slot basis and we were all afraid to miss the time slot given to enter the castle. So everyone tried to take as little photo as possible when we walked up the hill.

The castle interiors can be visited only on a guided tour - free roaming around is not possible. The tour is accompanied by a local tour guide and photography and video recording is prohibited.

There are hundreds of steps inside the castle and no lifts. We had to climb the spiral staircase up to fourth floor if not mistaken. We visited only a few rooms with the preserved furniture and fittings. But honestly speaking, the inside of the castle was slightly disappointing since there were only a third of the rooms done but it appeared much less than that. The tour of the castle was only 35 minutes which showed that there was not much to see.

But something not to be missed was the great scenery at the balcony on your way outside. The views are most spectacular. This is at the same level as the cafeteria and it is signposted.

Great scenery plus good weather was such a perfect combination

As our tour manager mentioned in the bus, we would have a chance to take photo from a bridge to see the entire castle if time permitted, and this was the most awaiting moment for us. Coming to Neuschwanstein Castle of course is for this!

However, right after we finished the tour and when we inquired the tour manager how much time we could have to go to the bridge for photo but the answer we got from him was extremely disappointing as this plan was being cancelled since we spent too long time to wait for the bus and the visit to the bridge was supposed to be done before we entered the castle. And the horse carriage time had also been fixed............

Of course we did not give up and we managed to convince him to allow us to have 20 minutes time to go to the bridge. Besides Wei Ying and myself, there was another sweet couple who always complained the tour manager like I did and without any hesitation, they joined us.

We ran all the way down from the castle heading to the bus drop off point to look for the bridge signage. And we had the chance to return to the great photo spot that we missed just now!!!

Finally got myself a good shot with this beautiful landscape

Finally we walked over the suspension footbridge behind the castle. We were mesmerised by the breathtaking view! Alps, Swan Lake, castle and the perfect weather made this a postcard-like photo.

This bridge is called Queen Mary's Bridge, and it is older than the castle, which spans the gap over a waterfall nearly 100 metres below.

Castle and me! The greatest achievement of the trip!

Running up to the hill again to catch our horse carriage back to the town until we were gasping for breath. My legs were almost numb. It had been a long long time that I did not move my body so much like this. I gotta take a short break otherwise I would have fainted.

And when we reached the horse carriage station, all the tour mates were pointing fingers at us because we were super late as we spent 45 minutes while the tour guide only allowed us to have 20 minutes to roam around. You can say we were selfish but we couldn't afford to miss the must-do activity when visiting this castle. This was like once in a lifetime opportunity okay?

We ran we sweat but all the effort and the 30 minutes walk was worth it after all as only four of us got to walk on the Queen Mary's Bridge for the incredible view.

Went down the hill by horse carriage and I felt so sad for the horses seeing them walking non-stop on the hard surface to send the passengers up and down the hill. One carriage carries eight to twelve passengers each time and it's not romantic at all to see the horses endure pain and suffering because of this outdated practice. This is so cruel.

And we were then back to the small little quaint town for shopping.

I was so upset with the tour manager as he disallowed us to have more time to walk to the bridge for photos but instead gave us like 45 minutes to shop for souvenirs. And in fact there was nothing much to buy here and souvenir shopping could be done in less than 30 minutes time.

I was so disappointed with APPLE HOLIDAY because I couldn't believe that they could get the poor tour manager like this.

The biggest regret was time didn't permit us to take the trail for this front facade castle view. So I could only snap this from a stall selling all kind of castle photos.

After some research which I did while writing this post, I got to know that there's a short paved trail takes you down to the castle and has beautiful views to the neighborhood castle Hohenschwangau. So you can see the entire Neuschwanstein Castle settled in beautiful landscape. I believe there must be enough preparation work to be done if you want to see the castle from different angle.