Had a fantastic day today. The plan was to go to Neuschwannstein castle, which has been on both of our bucket lists for years.

We tried to reserve advance tickets before we left home, but we misread their website. We thought you had to book the tickets within 2 days of arrival. Turns out, you need to book the advance tickets a MINIMUM of 2 days before arrival. This meant that when we tried to book our tickets, all of the allocations were exhausted.

This was a bummer, because our research had told us that often the line for tickets on the day can be up to 3 hours long. Given that the castle is 2 hours drive from Munich, we didn't really want to drive for 2 hours, wait for 3 hours and then drive back for 2 hours. That would have taken 7 hours out of our day.

So we took a punt and got up at 5:45am, jumped in Bessy and drove straight out to be there when it opened.

The gamble paid off. We arrived right on 8:00, which is when the ticket booths opened and only waited for 45 minutes for the tickets.

We then had to walk for 30 minutes uphill to reach the castle. We could have taken a bus, but we didn't want to be lazy. They also had horse carriages, but we thought it was cruel to make the horses lug our fat bodies up the hill.

So walk we did, and it was a lovely walk up through the forest (it could have been the Black Forest, Alex!). The weather was perfect. Not a cloud in the sky and about 30 degrees.

The views from the mountain next to the castle down into the valley were absolutely spectacular. We took some awesome pics. The castle itself was stunning.

The castle is only 150 years old and the guy who built it (Mad King Ludwig II) died before it was finished. No-one has lived in it since, so it is still in original condition, with original furnishings, chandeliers, frescoes, mosaics, etc. Unfortuately it is strictly VERBOTEN to take photos, so we don't have any pics of the inside. The pics of the outside, however are amazing.

There are also great views of Ludwigs other castle from up there, Hohenschwangau.

After spending some time at the castle, we headed back down the mountain and had lunch in the small town at the base (Schwangau). The meal was brilliant. Lidia had potato soup with a sausage in it and I had dumpings in mushroom sauce, which were very tasty.

The queue for tickets when we walked past the ticket booth was way over 3 hours long, so we were glad we came so early.

The drive back to Munich was uneventful, except for a traffic jam caused by a runaway horse. There were 2 riders in traditional German costume. One of them evidently fell off her horse and the horse panicked in the traffic and started running down the road. The other rider tried to catch it, but it was too fast. About 3 kilometres down the road, a tractor driver caught the horse and traffic was able to resume normally. I must say it is the first time I have ever been held up in traffic by a braided horse with a rider wearing lederhosen.

After we arrived back in Munich, we went out to see the glockenspiel. This was about as exciting as the astronomical clock in Prague, ie: Probably the most exciting thing in Germany 108 years ago. Today, not so much.

The gay pride party is still going strong. By geez, they know how to party. I must say a lot of the wigs are looking a little droopy today though and the makeup a litte smudged (on the men).

Tonight we went to the Haxn-Bauer for dinner. Supposed to have the best pork knuckle in Munich. Of course I ordered one (a small one mind you), which was so huge I could only get through half of it. We took the rest with us so that we can make sandwiches with it tomorrow.

All in all, a great day.