Arriving at Fussen aboard the local train is in itself quite the experience. The Alps rise up in the distance and begin to appear nearer as the train makes its way slowly southwards edging closer to the Austrian border. Alongside the train weaves a narrow stream for miles upon miles, its banks no more than a few inches from the top of the water. Fields upon fields of green grass and corn grow abundantly here. The single track railway line cuts a thin route between the trees, their leaves inches from the train. The rickety sound of the train and the engines gentle hum are the only sounds heard above your own floating thoughts in the afternoon sunshine.
Camping Brunnen
There’s no need to catch a taxi from Fussen to the campsite at Camping Brunnen as bus 78 takes you straight to the campsite and is located just outside the train station. Keep a careful eye on the buses though as they don’t run very regularly or late either. The price for the bus is cheap, but if you arrived at Fussen aboard a train using the Bavarian ticket then you can also use it on the buses for no extra charge! The campsite is spacious and clean although it fills up almost completely with Germans and their caravans. The location is beautiful with a large swimming lake right alongside and with a view to the south of the alps and castle Neuschwanstein. All around this campsite there’s a spectacular view. If this were enough then it would be a great campsite. For those without the luxury of a caravan (compared to a tent like us) then staying here in what we called the deluge nights and unpredictable days the experience is somewhat different. The campsite doesn’t really offer somewhere for people to go and hang out indoors unless you call the tiny basement room with no windows, small pool table, a bench that’s about to collapse and a couple of arcade racing games that were better suited to the Atari days somewhere to go. I on the other hand would not. The showers and cooking facilities are all clean, but there’s not really a sense of community here. Perhaps if I spoke more German it would be different. If you’re looking for backpackers then this might not be the best place to stay, but for the price and it’s accessibility to the local points of interest it’s not a bad place to stay if the weather is dry. For more information, check out their website here
Fussen
Taking a quick 20 minute bus ride through the beautiful Bavarian countryside will get you from the campsite back to the town of Fussen. I’m sure it looks more beautiful in the winter all covered in snow, but for me it didn’t really strike me as much of a town. There are a few interesting streets with cafes and novelty shops, but more than anything there are the usual crappy tourist souvenir shops full of overpriced gifts so many people are interested in until they get them home and realize they’ve paid way to much money for a load of rubbish.
The real point to Fussen in my opinion is to use it as a gateway into the area by train so you can then gain access to the over 180km of footpaths, cycling paths, mountain paths, swimming lakes, forests, skiing and castles.
Castle Neuschwanstein
Having been from Fussen to Brunnen and back again we’d already seen castle Neuschwanstein several times as the 78 bus makes a regular stop there on its route. Due to this we could tell how busy the area gets with tourists. With this thought we opted to arrive at the castle early to beat the swathe of tourists and are glad we did. In order to visit the inside of the castle you have to be on a tour which lasts 30mins. When you arrive at the foot of the hill you have to visit the ticket office. We’d bought our ticket at 8:59am with little to no queue of people in front of us at the ticket office. You have a choice of buying the Royal ticket which allows you on a tour of both the Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein castles, but having this joint ticket costs €1 short of double the price and puts you under a bit of a time crunch to see them both. We opted to pay only for the entrance to Neuschwanstein.
Our tour time was at 10:10am so with a reported 40min walk to the castle entrance we bought a coffee to warms our bones and set off up the hill on foot. Instead of walking you can take a horse drawn carriage or shuttle bus to the top, but there’s nothing wrong with using your legs and getting up there. It only took us about 20mins at a reasonable pace so unless you are less than unfit or have a heart problem don’t even think about cheating your way to the top.
Like all things German the process of getting into the castle was done with punctuality unlike any other nation. At exactly 10:10am we were heading inside and up the first series of steps that wound around and around. Once at the first floor our group met our guide, a young German girl. Having been told you are not allowed to take photos of inside the castle a few people let out groans including one from myself. It didn’t seem to stop one overly excited and overweight woman however even if she did huff and puff up each stair in order to take the shots. All in all there are over 350 steps to climb, but it’s worth it as the views outside of the castle windows in themselves are breathtaking, but so is the interior.
The castle is supposed to be the inspiration for Walt Disney and his Sleeping Beauty castle. It’s a magnificent place set in the rocks that has captured the hearts of many.
Make sure you take the time to walk around the back of the castle as you’ll find the path which takes you to the Marienbrucke suspension bridge. From here, if you brave the wobbling wooden planks is a glorious view of the castle and all the way past it to the lake at the Brunnen campsite. Below your feet gushes a huge waterfall.
If you’re thinking you can easily take the famous shot of outside the castle then please let me know how as we couldn’t find the path that leads to the vantage point to take it.
King Ludwig II
King Ludwig II was first introduced to the works of Wagner on February 2nd 1861. The opera was Lohengrin, the knight of the swan and it left a profound impression on him. Within a few days of becoming king at the tender age of eighteen he ordered his ministers to go and find Wagner and bring him to Munich. This wasn’t as easy as first thought, but in the end Wagner was found running from his creditors in Vienna. From this point on the pair were inseparable, with Ludwig paying down his debts and setting him up in a comfortable villa. This however didn’t last too long and within 18 months the Munich society were becoming tired of Wagners arrogance and jealous of his influence on the young king. Eventually Wagner was forced to leave Munich for Switzerland. This did not prevent the king from covering numerous interior walls of castle Neuschwanstein with illustrations depicting scenes from Richard Wagner’s dramas such as Siegfried (lobby), Lohengrin (reception rooms), Tristen and Isolde (bedroom), Tannhauser (study) Master Singers (toilet). It is amazing to think there were 35 artists working on the castle alongside 14 carpenters who worked on the King’s bedroom. In the end only 16 rooms were built completely before the Kings untimely death at the age of 41. The king apparently only spent 172 days at the castle and on every one of those days the walls of the castle were covered with scaffolding.
Nobody really knows why the King was found dead with his psychiatrist but the rumors are he was spending all the money he could to build his castle and the final straw came when he reportedly tried to sell off part of Bavaria to fund his castle building.
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