Saturday 28th - The castles!

Our plan was to zip across to castle Neuschwanstein then move on towards Oberammergau, however it was no to be.  Firstly we got stuck on the motorway for over an hour and didn't make it to the castles till lunchtime.
We used our loaf of soda bread (not popular choice) to feed the ducks and swans at the lake before making our way up the hill to the Hohenschwangau, the honey coloured castle.
Amelie & I had to go to the little girls room, so left the boys looking at the map on a hill.  When we returned they had disappeared, assuming they had carried on we went all the way to the top to "catch up".  We watched the horse drawn carriages trudging up the steep hill, but when we got to the castle they were still nowhere to be seen.  No way they could've gone on a "tour" of the castle as I had the money, so we headed back down the hill.  Half way down we stopped for a break, we waited for a while and finally they turned up!! They'd been playing by the lake - joy!

So off we set again to the top, this time for a proper look around. King Ludwig may have been slightly crazy but he had some inspired visions about castles!!

Then it was off to Neuschwanstein on the other side of the valley, a long walk up, could anything really be worth this walk??! We'd already seen from a distance that the castle was half covered in scaffolding, but when we finally got there it was truly amazing.  We went to all the view points, took photos, wandered around the parts we could without a ticket, but it was St Mary's bridge which had the money shot! All the pictures you've ever seen of this castle were taken from there.

We walked further, the bridge crosses a gorge over an enormous waterfall.  The bridge was not solid, the wooden rails moved as you walked on them. Edward kept commenting on how much they moved as he jumped or the rickety feeling bridge! - joy
The view of the castle however was amazing, the scaffolding was on the opposite side, from here it looked spectacular. Rich insisted on taking a video for Granma, which took far too long for my liking, but even he was getting shaky and had to grab the hand rails a few times. Finally we made it back to solid ground, relief, sweet relief.  Rich wanted to go into the gorge and walk around, so I said he was welcome, we'd meet him at the van! We parted ways and headed down the hill, we took our time and looked in a few shops at the quality souvenirs, almost brought Rich an apron with the outline of a buxom lady holding 2 large beers, but resisted!!
He caught up with us as we were nearing the car park, which was lucky as I had realised (too late)  that he was carrying the keys!
Everyone was hot and had very tired feet so we headed back to the lake to cool off.
Rich & the kids went for a swim while boring mum paddled and "guarded" the clothes and bags!
Eventually we headed back to the van & the camp site, it was late and raining so we ate at the snack bar, bratwurst, curry bratwurst & a couple of hache steaks.  It was set up like a traditional beer halle with long tables and benches.  There was a disco going on and we joined in for one of the dances after dinner - lots of fun!!!