Getting to the Fairytale Cinderella Castle is always one of every girl’s dream, it’s no different to every of our ladies within the family.
The famous “Schloss Neuschwanstein” (Schloss is know as Castle in German) is located near the town of Fussan. If you want to dedicated a few days to visit this area, then it is wise to find an accommodation around this area. For us, given that it is only a day trip, it was a good time for us to switch our hostel from Siegsdorf (Munich East) to Babenhausen (Munich West). It took just over two hours for us to drive from Munich East directly to the tourist area near the castle. We parked at Parkplatz P1 on google map below. There are plenty of parking, and cost EU12 for maximum of 6 hours at the time of writing.
Bookings and Tickets
To visit the castle’s interior, an advanced booking online is needed. It is wise to pre-book a few months in advance via its official website, especially if you decide to visit during the summer holidays. We missed out the Schloss Neuschwanstein tour even though I tried to book one month in advance. We were only able to book Schloss Hohenschwangau tour – cost EU23.5 for an adult and EU12 for a child to visit. Neuschwanstein tour is probably around double the amount from memory.
To get to the Neuschwanstein Castle, there is an option to walk uphill for around 45 minutes, or to catch the bus to Mary’s Bridge (Marien Brucke) uphill (cost EU3.5 each way) and then walk up for 15 minutes. The final option is to catch horse-carriage (uphill cost EU8, downhill EU4) and then walk up for 15min.
You can check out the map and all the transportation prices on the following link.
Schloss Hohenschwangau is more straight forward, as it takes less than 15 minutes to walk up the hill. We did not take any transportation.
Hohenschwangau Castle Visit
We arrived 20 minutes before our scheduled time, we managed to take some photos outside Schloss Hohenschwangau. There is also a souvenir shop nearby and it is worthwhile to have a look around.
We weren’t allowed to take any photos inside the palace, there is a tourist guide with English audio available for foreign tourists. The place provided a glimpse on the interior and decorations on the Royal Family’s residence, and provide further insight on their daily lives many years ago.
Neuschwanstein Castle Visit
Of course, the moment of the day is the Schloss Neuschwanstein. Although we did not secured booking for the tour, just watching the monument already got us excited. We caught the bus to Mary’s Bridge and took some distant photos.
We caught the bus from the base, and the bus terminated at the Mary’s bridge. You can actually take some very nice photos near the bridge, as per the photos above. It can get very crowded at times, even when we went there on a weekday. I don’t advise children to cross that bridge alone, as there are gaps between the wooden planks at 100 meters above the Gorge, and with so many people crossing the bridge at the same time.
From the bridge, it took us around 15 minutes to get to the castle. Although we were not able to book a time to visit the interior, just walking past outside already is a dreams come true for us. It’s definitely a once in a lifetime experience!
It took us another 15 minutes to walk back to the base again, the walk is fun as they are all downslope. There were some small snack shop along the way if you need some refreshments.
