We've got fitness

Two weekends ago (March 4-6th) I was able to finally live my dream of seeing the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany.

 I went with Cassi and our friend Trevor. We left Thursday night and arrived in Munich around 5:30. We had to make our way to the city center so that we could get to our hostel, which was just around the corner from where the main train/metro station was, and then we hopped onto our tour bus (it was a double decker) that took us through the Bavarian countryside to see the Linderhof and Neuschwanstein Castles. They were both built by King Ludwig II. His favorite castle, out of the 4 he built, was the Linderhof Castle, where he spent 8 years of his life.

It had snowed a couple days before we got there so everything was covered in snow. In the Spring there are gardens and a fountain infront of the castle, I saw pictures of it and it's absolutely gorgeous, I would love to go back to see the gardens someday.

Unfortunately this is the only picture I was allowed to legally take inside the castle. It was the most over the top decorations I had ever seen. Everything was covered in gold and there wasn't a single wall that hadn't been painted and lavishly decorated with some kind of china. The best room was the Hall of Mirrors, there were mirrors positioned so that when you looked into them it felt as though the room went on forever.





After the Linderhof Castle we were bussed to a little town so that we could buy some souviners and then we were off to the Neuschwanstein Castle! I had been wanting to go for forever and it was on the top of my list of things to see while I was here and it most definitely was not a let down. It was like a fairytale, infact Walt Disney must have thought so too because the Sleeping Beauty Castle is an exact replica.

To get to the castle you have to hike up a hill, our tour guide said "it's a 30 minute walk if you have fitness and 45minutes if you don't." I suppose we must have fitness because we made it up there in about 25minutes. It was completely worth it though, I was so excited when we finally reached the top. 

We got to have a guided tour inside the castle but, like the Linderhof, we weren't able to take pictures inside.

The whole day was absolutely perfect.

The day after the castles we went to Dachau and did a 3 hour free walking tour. The walking tour was really great because we learned a lot of history about the city and our tour guide told us a lot about Hitler and his revolution, she also took us to some of the exact spots he had walked. I enjoyed it because I learned a ton of things and I got to see it/walk through it myself instead of sitting in a classroom trying to learn about it.

Dachau

I know it looks like just a wall but actually it's a pretty important place for many people. Can you see the square left on the top middle block? There used to be a sign that was hung there by Hitler, everytime someone walked by it they had to salute it. As you can imagine there were plenty of people who did not want to do this because they weren't part of the Nazi Party.

To avoid the sign people began "dogging" it, they would turn a street early just so that they could walk around the sign. Unfortunately the guards that stood by the sign to make sure that people saluted weren't dumb and figured out what the people were doing so they began to keep track of the people going down doggers alley and if they were caught going that way too many times they were beaten and humilated infront of people. Throughout the city there are streets with gold cobblestones (like this one to the right) to commemorate those who dogged the sign.

I didn't get the best picture for this story but there are 2 lions in the middle of the picture, the building to the left is a governemt building and the one on the right is a church. The lion on the left has it's mouth open to represent that you can always speak out about your government and the on the right has it's mouth closed to represent that you shouldn't speak against the church. On the steps between the lions is where Hitler gave some of his speeches.

Other than learning about Nazi Germany our tour guide also showed us some other things:

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The most expensive street to shop on in Munich

Hofbrauhaus, one of the oldest beer halls in Munich.

This is a statue of Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), if a man is having problems with his girlfriend/wife he is supposed to bring her flowers and rub her right breast. As you can see someone must have been having some relationship troubles, hopefully it worked out for him.

The tour ended at the May Pole. If a guy likes a girl he is supposed to go cut down a huge tree and put it infront of the girls house, she has to then figure out who he is by the clues he put on the pole. Once she figures it out and if she likes him too I guess they would work that out but if she doesn't like him she sets beer out infront of the pole. Also, if a town steals another towns May Pole the town that had theirs stollen has to put on a big party and pay for all of the beer and food for the other town. I guess the airport has one and the Munich police stole it so the guards at the airport had to throw a party for them, atleast that's what our tour guide said.

Ok, one last thing to top off a great trip to Munich... See the bathroom picture below? It was the cleanest and most expensive bathroom I have ever used. When we walked in we were hit with a blast of lemony fresh scent and also a 2euro charge.

Anyway, I loved our weekend and Munich and I would definitely like to go back sometime.