Food

We decided that today we would accomplish two things - have the best apfel strudel in Munchen and go see Neuschwanstein Castle, which the Disney castle is based on.

After much (10 mins internet) research the apple strudel had been decided and we decided to be adventurous and drive into the middle of town to get it. That worked out surprisingly well and we ended up at Arzmiller.

They do a very tasty Apfel strudel with vanillasosse (vanilla sauce/custard). Unfortunately we only got one to share, which was a mistake because of how tasty it was.

But we needed to get on the road. Neuschwanstein Castle is near Fussen, about 100km out of Munich, so we headed on our way and arrived about 12. Saw a helicopter and some paratroopers jump out on the way which was pretty cool.

We didn’t quite realise what was involved and how touristy it was going to be, but we lined up at the ticket office for the castle and decided that we would be going to see both castles (I didn’t even know there was another castle there?!?!) as it was only 1 Euro more. It takes a good few hours to do the castles - we arrived at 12 and left just after 5pm. We were lined up behind idiot Americans which was quite amusing. They also could not read English, and the guy went to the wrong line to buy the tickets - which is hard to do considering the amount of English signage.

After eventually getting to the front of the queue, the nice ticket lady booked us on an audio tour for Schloss Hohenschwangau, and then the English guided tour for Schloss Neuschwanstein. We headed straight up to the Hohenschwangau, which was a relatively small castle, and where the royal family lived. It is where King Ludwig II grew up and decided to build a bigger castle across the valley. Audio tour was good, made it through pretty quickly.

We had time before our next tour to have some lunch, and we sat and had some Bratwurst (with roll) and goulash (with roll). The goulash was so delicious we went back for seconds.

We headed up to the Neuschwanstein which is advertised as a 40 minute walk, but you could bus it or horse and carriage it. We chose to walk, and it only took about 20 mins, but the path was quite steep and laden with lots of horse crap. There is a little man on a tractor that collects all the horse crap, but the remnants of it are attacked by crazy hordes of flies, which made the walk up fairly interesting.

The castle was a bit crazy (like the King was) with a fake cave room, a marble and gold throne room, and a lot of ornate paintings.

After everything was over we headed back to Munich. But not before saying hello to the horsies.

We thought that since we had had dinner at the same place twice we should try something new. Paulaner Braeuhaus (insert ominous music).

On the way over we should have turned around due to the bad omen of the weather. But we didn’t.

Photos are bad (too dark) but we had a nice potato and black sausage soup, then goulash (not as good as lunch) and weiner schnitzel for Ben. The food was OK but the service was crap. Our main dude was busy trying to chat up the barmaids and kept going angry at the other nice server whenever he tried to talk to us. He was a bit of a tool and tried to tell us service wasn’t included in the bill and then stood over us waiting for a tip. We did not oblige and he yelled at us on our way out. Food was more expensive than at our Augustiner Braustuben, atmosphere was weird and service was crapola. If you are ever in Munich - DON'T GO HERE :)

However, we didn’t run into our Mandurah friends. We enjoyed our time in Munich, but it is almost time to head to Italy!