Day 69-70: Munich & Fussen & Chur

On Friday, Daryl got up at 7am to cart our next shipment of goods to the post office. He was really nice and let me sleep a bit longer. While there was no problem with dropping off the box (expect another delivery Leo and Joanne), he found out that it weighed in at over 30lb. When I found this out, I felt pretty terrible for not having helped him carry it to the post office. Needless to say, Daryl didn’t need any extra exercise after that workout.

We left the apartment at 9:30 and headed to the Viktualienmarkt again, hoping to hit up a crafts store that was open on Monday when we first visited the market, but has been closed ever since. Unfortunately, our luck was not any better and the store was still closed. I was kind of sad because we planned on picking up a cute toy for our nephew…oh well.

Afterwards, we headed to the main train station and caught the train to Fussen, which is in the south of Germany on the border with Austria. Fussen is very close to the large, fairytale-like castles that were built by Ludwig I and his son Ludwig II in the 19th century. The castles are set in a picturesque area of Bavaria with lots of mountains and lakes. We took a bus from the Fussen train station to the castle grounds. While we had planned to tour both castles, it was fairly late in the day when we arrived and decided on just seeing the castle of Ludwig II, called Neuschawnstein (, which is larger and more fantastical (Walt Disney based his Sleeping Beauty castle on it). We bought our tickets and then quickly snuck around the grounds of Ludwig I’s castle, Hohenschwangau, to capture a couple of pictures before heading up the mountain to Neuschawnstein. Here are those pictures:

*Looking up the hill to Neuschwanstein Castle

While we could take a shuttle (or horse-drawn carriage) up to the castle, we decided to walk. While it only took about 20 minutes, it was a fairly steep grade all the way up. Once we arrived, we were very sweaty (it was a balmy November day) but the views made it worthwhile. Check them out.

*On the walk up to the castle

Due to the placement of the sun, it was a little difficult to capture a good picture of the castle itself, but we gave it a good go.

Once we were inside the courtyard, we had to wait for our tour group number to appear on a display board. While most people enjoyed the views of the mountains or sat and relaxed to pass the time, this group of tourists was anxiously awaiting the arrival of their number. Not too surprising…

*Inside the castle courtyard, while waiting for our number to be called

Our number was finally called and we got to go inside the castle. We were on a guided tour that lasted about 30 minutes and took us through most of the furnished rooms of the castle (most of the castle was left unfinished when Ludwig II died during construction). It was over the top inside and it was obvious that no expense was spared. We wish we could have taken some photos, but it was “verboten” (forbidden).

Once the tour ended, we hiked up another 15 minutes to Marienbrucke (Mary's Bridge), a bridge over a gorge that affords beautiful views of the castle. Unfortunately, some of the castle exterior was being restored, which hindered the beauty (and photogeniety) of the castle a little.

*Picture of Marienbrucke from the castle

*View down from the bridge

We then rushed down the hill to catch the bus back to the train station, even cutting through some prohibited areas to save time (we are such rebels). We easily caught the bus and 15 minutes later we were comfortably seated in 1st class on our way back to Munich. On arrival in Munich, we purchased a few groceries and headed back to the apartment. We arrived at 20:00 (8pm), so it was a pretty long day of sightseeing. We caught up on e-mails and called it a night.

Saturday morning we again woke fairly early, did a bit of a workout, and packed up our stuff. We headed to the train station around 11:00 to catch the train to Chur, Switzerland, where we are spending the night before getting on the Bernina Express Sunday morning. While the trip to the station was seamless, we experienced a few difficulties both at the station and on the train. We started by trying to activate our Italy Rail Europe Pass, as we will need the pass to enter Italy on Sunday (the Bernina Express ends in Tirano, Italy). The Deutsche Bahn employees claimed that they could only activate German Rail Passes (we know this not to be true, as our Eastern Europe Pass was activated in Dresden, Germany earlier on this trip). While we tried to ask for clarification, they were rather condescending and shooed us away. FAIL.

We boarded the train from Munich to Chur and settled in. When the ticket agent came by to check our tickets, we were informed that our Denmark-Germany-Switzerland Pass did not cover the entire trip, as the train was going to make a single stop in Austria on the way from Germany into Switzerland. As a result, we had to pay an extra 25 Euro. FAIL AGAIN.

The rest of the train trip was fairly uneventful. Here are some pics of the mountains in Switzerland.

When we reached Chur, Switzerland the first thing we did was go to the ticket office to try to get the Italy pass activated again. They stamped the pass without a problem and even commented that there was absolutely no reason that they couldn't have done the same in Munich. This lifted our spirits quite a bit.

We made the short walk to our hotel for the evening, checked in, and unloaded. We then walked around the very small village for a little while and picked up some food for dinner from the grocery store.

*Display window featuring Arc'teryx, the brand of coat that we are wearing on our trip and which we don't see a lot of in Europe (the most popular brand is Jack Wolfskin)

*Ugly bug that we noticed climbing on the jacket beside the Arc-teryx coat. Ewww!

*GE - Gotta represent...

*Dinner that we assembled...pretzel bread, Greek salad, carrots, and blood orange juice with vodka

Now we are settling in for the evening and preparing for an early morning of excitement on the Bernina Express, a train that cuts a very scenic path through the Swiss Alps and ends up in Italy. Till next time!