The Day We Walked to Austria

The trip we took Saturday was my favorite yet. It was also probably the cheapest, believe it or not.

Let me first inform you, because I'm really quite proud of this fact: we walked to Austria.

comparing Neuschwanstein to Disney

We did a bunch of other things, too. The purpose of Saturday’s expedition was actually to visit Neuschwanstein Castle, possibly one of the most famous castles in the world. {You may recognize it from Disney.} We’d planned to go a couple weeks ago as part of the Rothenburg/Bamberg {yes, there will be a post eventually} trip, but tours inside the castle were booked. We planned for another weekend, but those tickets were booked, too. After looking at some mediocre reviews of the 30-minute tour, we agreed that it wasn’t worth the expense and extra scheduling. Instead, we made our plans.

     “I’m going to Neuschwanstein,” I told the Right-Hand Man and the Raman Spectroscopist.
     “Oooh,” said the Raman Spectroscopist. “I’ve never been there.”
     She and the Right-Hand Man informed me that no one thought very highly of the king who had built the castle in the relatively recent 1800s. “No one is quite sure how he died,” the Raman Spectroscopist told me. “He drowned in the lake.”
     “He walked into it,” said the Right-Hand Man. “He was crazy.”
     “Well, no one really knows,” she persisted.
     “He walked into the lake and died,” he repeated.
     “I mean, it could have been suicide, but--”
     “It was. He just walked straight into the lake one day. He was crazy.”
     The Raman Spectroscopist gave up.

Our party to visit this castle consisted of Joseph, Numa, Thomas, Victoria, and myself. We took train and bus for over four hours before arriving in the town of Hohenschwangau {the town at the base of the castle}.

There is more English {and Spanish and Japanese} in this Schwangau than anywhere else in Germany, I’m pretty sure. Even Berlin. This place is overrun with tourists. The last stage of our train trip was so crowded that we sat on the floor in the space between cars. My memory of Hohenschwangau is little more than mobs and mobs and mobs of tourists.

     “I am going to Neuschwanstein,” I told the Opinionated Romanian.
     “Ah, Neuschwanstein,” he said. “You are going to a place in Germany where most Germans have never been.”
     “I’ve noticed,” I told him.
     “Yes, you see, Germany is...” He paused, looking for the right analogy. “Germany is like a bowl of ice cream.”
     “Ice cream.”
     “Ice cream full of chocolate sprinkles, which are castles,” he explained. “And Neuschwanstein is just a more impressive chocolate sprinkle.”

exhibit a: mobs of tourists

Well, to see this impressive chocolate sprinkle, we walked up the hill to the castle {along with, you guessed it, mobs of tourists}. A word of warning for anyone ever considering castle-visiting in the future: castles are built for a reason. The whole goal of a castle is to be as impenetrable and unapproachable as possible. THEY ARE HARD TO APPROACH. It is very quaint and all to think of castles being built on hills, but when it comes to visiting them...ouch. I mean, Neuschwanstein is on a mountain.

So we climbed a hill and arrived at the castle.

And then we turned around.

Our fascination with the castle lasted all of, I don’t know, two minutes. We kept turning around and admiring this:

And this:

And this:

The castle is very nice. Almost too nice and too perfectly...castle-y. It feels plastic. And with all the tourists, one can’t appreciate the beauty or historical significance or anything. Here it stands, the ostentatious castle of a mad king. Now check out those Bavarian Alps.

picnic

We took a different route down the mountain and ate our picnic lunch at the base of a lovely little waterfall. {A waterripple? Ice-cold water trickling down from the mountain.} Then we were off again.

Since Neuschwanstein is quite close to Austria, we’d had a plan to follow a particular road across the border. It was my plan, actually, but now that we were finished with our castle viewing, I was getting worried. We had spent more time approaching the castle than anticipated, and I realized that I hadn’t brought any sort of map or directions with me. {There is no 3G at Neuschwanstein, come to find out.} I didn’t want to take us into Austria without some idea of where we were going.

lake alpsee
photocredit: numa

We went to see {and take pictures by} Lake Alpsee while we considered our predicament. That was where I found the sign. There was the trail to Pinswang, Austria.

check out that turquoise

We took it. Almost immediately, we left the tourists behind and were presented with views of trees, mountains, and beautiful Apline lakes. The lakes. They are the same clear blue as the Caribbean. They are gorgeous. The turquoise waters of Lake Alpsee, surrounded by high and jagged mountains...the beauty I saw Saturday was almost enough to make me cry.

the border!
photocredit: numa

I do not know how long we'd walked our trail through the mountains when we finally crossed the official border {no station, no passports, no one in sight}. We headed for the town of Pinswang, which turned out to be a quiet country town with fields and horses, surrounded by towering mountains. There were flowers everywhere, too. More so than are in Würzburg currently.

en route to pinswang

As we continued walking, I began to worry that we’d miss our transport back into Germany. I was so stressed, in fact, that I ignored the bus stop that would take us back right on schedule! I’m really grateful that the others on the trip noticed my error and called me back from my laser-focused mission to get to the unnecessary train station.

The temperature that day was also about 95 degrees Fahrenheit {have to specify that nowadays}. When we got out of the sun and onto the bus that would take us back to Germany, Joseph said it was “the best money he’d spent all day.” I agreed.

Upon arriving in Fuessen, Germany, we bought more water. At our next train switch, in Augsburg, we bought ice cream. And upon getting on our last train in Treuchtlingen, we fell asleep and didn't wake up until Würzburg {actually, that's not true: we dozed sporadically due to the constant fear of missing our stop}. It was possibly one of the most exhausting days of my life. I mean, we saw the most impressive chocolate sprinkle in Germany,

and we walked to Austria.