Europe Adventure: Day Twenty-three, part two- Oberammergau

After leaving the castle we drove to Oberammergau. 

As we were leaving the castle area I had to pull over and get some more pictures of the area. It was just too beautiful. 

 

My mom took more pictures as we drove...

Oberammergau is a fantastic little town full of shops and beautiful buildings. 

We were heading to the Kathe Wohlfahrt store.

It is basically where all your Christmas decor dreams come true. 

We shopped for quite a while and bought a lot of things and then explored the village some more. 

Then we decided to get back to our hotel. 

The roads were amazing in Germany- so easy to navigate. And the tunnels were so cool. They had these huge fans in them that kept air flow going through. 

The welcome to Austria sign...

I think some of the above pictures were taken in the morning when we left but they were out of order so I am just leaving them as is. 

It was still afternoon when we got back to our hotel. 

We hadn't eaten lunch yet so we picked up some food in our hotel and took it back to our room.

They were sandwiches in pretzel type bread. 

We spent the afternoon packing up all of our stuff for the return trip to the US. 

At dinner time we ate in our hotel restaurant again.

Then we finished packing and just hung out. 

Europe Adventure: Day Twenty-Three- Neuschwanstein

Wednesday, April 27, 2016 we got up early to make the drive to Neuschwanstein castle. 
It was very cold and snowy. 
We bought our tickets online because I was told that it works kind of like a fast pass. You pick the tickets up when you get there but you don't have to wait in the same line as everyone else... plus you are guaranteed entry at the time you want and on the day you want. 
We didn't need a different line as there were hardly any other people there for the morning time but I know this is important to know if you go in busier times. 
We knew we needed to get there early because if you are not at the castle exactly at your time you are out of luck. They will not wait for you nor let you go at another time.
Online it told us how long to get there before your time but since ours was the first time I learned something... they aren't open that early!
We got there and walked from the car park to the ticket station. 
 There were people inside but they were content to let us walk and stand around in the snow. Ha. We were pretty freezing. 
A selfie while we waited...
       

Jennifer Rain came along of course...

While we waited we took advantage of the extra time to walk around (trying to stay warm) and take some pictures.
The castle on the hill.

The village at the bottom of the hill...

I loved their mini castle mailbox...

The other castle- Hohenschwangau is on a neighboring hill very close to Neuschwanstein. They were both castles owned by Ludwig the 2nd. This one was his childhood castle. Neuschwanstein was his dream castle that he begin to build before his death. 

At 8am they finally let us into the ticket office. 

We picked up our tickets. 

Then we begin to hike up the road to the castle. 

They have horse carriages that you can take up most of the way and everyone else was waiting for that but we had been standing in the snow for a long time and felt like hiking. 

The road is very steep and it is about a mile. 

It sure was pretty!

The entrance into the courtyard...

Even with walking the path, we made it to the castle about 20 minutes before the others so we spent the time walking around taking in the view. It was so beautiful.

We really wanted to go up to Mary's Bridge - it is where most of the classic pictures you see of the castle are taken from- but it was closed because of weather and a rockfall. 

Touring this castle was an amazing experience. I couldn't take any pictures inside during the tour but you can look it up online and find pictures of the different rooms and the grotto. 

It was so beautiful and full of amazing artwork. 

We loved the experience of touring it. 

We shopped in the gift shop in the castle and then stopped for a snack in the cafe. 

Of course we got hot chocolate!

 

To go with it we got some Black Forest Cake- the kind I wanted to try when we were in the Black Forest but couldn't find. 

It had a slight rum flavor but was quite good. 

After our tour we decided we would walk back down as well. As we made our way down there were tons of people going up. 

At the bottom I took this picture with the other castle in it plus some of the carriage horses. 

It had stopped snowing for a while at this point but was still pretty cold. 

I took a lot of pictures as we walked back down to our car. 

I really wanted a little Neuschwanstein model and I was able to buy one there. 

I also bought a really pretty print of it and some postcards of some of my favorite rooms.