At the Castles with a Few of Our Friends

We woke early after a better night's sleep and cleaned up in our telephone booth sized shower.  Loaded up the car and tried to check out before breakfast, but had to wait as they were preparing breakfast.  We sat outside for a few minutes until they were ready and took our assigned  seat.  We were next to the same couple that parked next to us the day before and that we saw at dinner.  We checked out, got permission to leave our car there, and walked up the hill (without our ticket voucher).

As we approached, the busses were arriving.  They kept coming all day long.

The first of the tourists coming from the bus parking lot.  A majority were Japanese who experienced the day through the lens of their camera, phone, or tablet.

We managed to get our tickets without the voucher, mainly because we hadn't paid, although I thought I had.  I'll be checking the CC statements!

Schloss Hohenschwangau. The first castle built in medieval times, destroyed and rebuilt in the 1800's.  We had to walk up to the castle.

More busses we arriving by 8:30

 The kitchen was in a separate building and the only place where pictures were allowed.

More busses arrived during the 30 minute tour.  The entire lot would be filled by the afternoon.

We were going to take the bus up the hill to the rcastle in the distance, but there we hundreds of people already in line and we didn't think we had time to wait before our next tour that we thought started in 20 minutes.

We were able to take some pictures from those upper balconies.

 We were some of the first on the 'trail'.

After realizing we had over an hour and 15 minutes, we took a short break.

Getting closer to the  Neuschwanstein castle.

 And closer

Outside the main entrance.  This place was built in the early 1800's as a mad man's fantasy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_castle

Each ticket had a group number, time stamp and a bar code for entry.  I was told by a guide that they have between 6-8,000 per day in the summer.  I would guess it was twice that number!  Do the math,  At least 100 (try counting them in a below picture) in a group every 5 minutes, that's 1,200 per hour.  9 to 5 is 8 hours or 9,600.

Where's Waldo?  Pam?

In the shade, by the main doorway.

Looking from where the last photos were taken.

 A tour group racing in so they can wait.

How many in this standard size group?

 The kitchen

 Nice countryside from a balcony of the castle.

That's where we stayed!  The dormer on the left was our balcony.

I asked Pam if she wanted to go to the bridge as it was free.  Thankfully she said no!

Seriously??

 We had to walk back down through throngs of tourists

 We finally made to the bottom by about 1:00 after being on our feet and hiking up and down for 5 hours.  We found a nearly empty place to sit on the deck and have a hot dog and tomato sandwich and fries that were instantly placed in front of us.  Great service I thought until as I sat down a full bus unloaded into the place and the guide got a big hug and who knows what else.  Two college girls from CA joined us and Pam got rid of most of her pent up talking.

Then off to Zurich to the Holiday Inn Express for a night before meeting the group at the airport.

Much to our relief they had an ice machine at the Holiday Inn.  By that I mean one ice machine in the lobby, the size of a large toaster oven for all 150 rooms.  Put some ice in a beer mug and race to your 5th floor before it melts!

We had a good night's rest in a slightly larger room, but still a micro shower.