Trip to Neuschwanstein Castle - Germany

March 18, 2006

I had to choose between satying the weekend in Lohr for the Honky-tonk kniepen fetstival and driving to the Neuschwanstien castle - I chose the later. The Honky-tonk kniepen festival is the most awaited event in Lohr. Essentially, during this festival each bar serves unlimited bear and has artists performing different genres of music. People go bar-hopping enjoying music and beer.
My plan was to drive to the castle and then stay overnight at Munich, spend some time there in the morning and then drive back to Lohr.

I started early in the morning, it was not snowing for a change but I knew that it would be snowing down south near Austria. Even though my car had a GPS, past experiences had taught me that it was good to use a map and directions from Via Michelin.com. I started along ST2435 towards Karlsdat, took B27 to Wurzburg, took B8 at versbach and got on the AutoBahn A7. The drive to Wurzburg is a very beautiful one - especially the houses and the streets and the churches. Driving on autobahn was fun, I fastest I drove on this trip was 168Kmph over a significant stretch.

It started to snow within 100km of my getting on to A7 and soon everything around me was white. I took B310 near Nesselwang and then took B17 near Fussen. The driving conditions were very bad with a lot of snow, I had to drive carefully and very slow. I reached Hohenschwangau - the town near the castle at about 3:00 P.M. Hohenschwangau was completely submerged in snow and looked very pretty.

The castle looked as if straight out of a fairy tale especially with the Alps' alpine background. The walk up to the castle is about a mile and there is an option to go on a horse driven carriage. I loved the hike and actually got some nice photgraphs of the castle from the way. The castle itself was fabulous, very very beautiful. By the time I finished seeing both castles here, it was 5:30 and it was starting to snow again. There was no way now that I could cross into Asutria and make it back to Munich. I decided to drive back to Munich from here.