Stull Family Adventures in Germany!: Neuschwanstein plus more!!!

Friday, Feb. 8, 2013

This morning we were awoken by the sound of a giant snowblower cleaning up the parking lot. We got a LOT of snow overnight!

When I parked here yesterday, it was cleared off!

Our hotel had a great breakfast included in our stay. It was a very typical German breakfast.

Semmel (roll), lunch meats, cheeses, fruit, yogurt, soft boiled egg (ew.) And cake! For breakfast! Yay!

We checked out and left for the castle Neuschwanstein. The roads weren't too bad for most of the way, but we sure got a lot of snow! Unfortunately it was a bit overcast. Add to that the fact that my camera "shadows" are getting worse and my pics didn't turn out so great!!!

There it is, up in the Alps!

Beautiful!

We got our tour tickets and had almost 2 hours to kill. We got some lunch at a little hotel/restaurant place. We had fun there trying on Grandma's new hat! It is SO WARM!!

Now for the food pics. Not too exciting! Grandma and I weren't very hungry, so we split the Kartoffelpuffer (potato pancakes) and it wasn't as big as we thought it would be. And the girls got good 'ole American style chicken nuggets.

There are usually busses that go up the mountain to take you to the castle, as well as carriage rides. Or you can walk. The busses were not running due to the steep hill and icy conditions. Walking? Nah. Carriage ride!!!

Is it cold, Lainie?

View from inside the castle

Again, no photos allowed inside. If you want to see an amazing building, go here!
Neuschwanstein castle
It was a lot of steps! A lot! But it's a very beautiful, ornate building. We all enjoyed the tour! (Although this was my 3rd time being in here....'05, '08 and now....and I always seem to get the worst English speaking tour guides! Most Germans speak English very well, but they don't work here!)
They have a model of the castle, it's cool. This castle was never finished as Kind Ludwig died before it was done. 6 weeks later it was opened to the public for tours.

Lea took a little tumble down a couple of stairs outside and got a bit of a boo-boo. Icy out here!!! (She was fine, just a scrape.)

We took the carriage ride back down. Then we drove on home! I'm sure Brad missed us and was very lonely.

We weren't home very long when Karen called and we decided to eat out with them. Udo was still out of town so Brad was on his own with us girls, LOL! At least he had Christoph. We went to a place that our friend/neighbor Johanna recommended called Kaelberhalle. It is located inside an Augsburg microbrewery called Hasen Braeu. (Put an umlaut on that a! Darn English keyboard.) The building actually used to be a slaughterhouse. Not a pleasant thought but it is a really cool building. Lainie's friend Emma came with us!

Beer needs a humidor? Who knew?

Our waiter, Flo, who it turns out lives on Emma's street and is our neighbor!! He was funny. See his Lederhosen?

Some beer bottling thingy

It's a huge building, very high ceilings.

So the food was really, really, really good! Traditional Bavarian fare. I decided not to include pictures this time. Ha! Yeah, right!

Karen and Grandma had steak with roasted onions, Kaesespaetzle and veggies

My "Small portion" of schnitzel! Ha, it was HUGE!!!

A pizza-type flatbread...this was Brad's

And this was Lea's

Lea had gingerbread flavored ice cream for dessert

We got 2 of these for everyone. It's called Kaiserschmarrn. It's just a big pancake! Karen says it's usually deep fried, which would have been good, too.