Trusty Rick recommended that we buy our tickets in advance during peak tourist season so I had reserved an entry time of 1:00. Unfortunately we didn’t get going as early as we should have and hit traffic. I called to let them know we were running late and it wasn’t a problem to push back our entry time.
However, we still were running late and once we had parked the car I was anxious to get to the ticket office and even more anxious to find a bathroom. Jim, of course, was taking forever leaving the car because he was worried about leaving our bikes in the car. He put his sandwich on top of the car to gather his things and a bee discovered it and seemed to like Tyrolean speck (ham) as much as Jim. While he was fighting the bee for his Sammie, his pregnant wife badly in need of the bathroom was shouting at him, “Abandon the sandwich, abandon the sandwich” with the same intensity of someone caught in the midst of enemy crossfire with comrades falling all around. Jim found this hilarious so it has now become a catch phrase in our household.
We found the more challenging hike up to the castle with some difficulty and had time to hike up to the Marien Bridge for a quick picture before our entry time.
The Marien Bridge was absolutely packed with people but after seeing so many pictures of the castle I wanted to get my own perfect picture of this fairytale castle. Much to our dismay, after braving the hordes of tourists (some quite stinky and sweaty from the hike up) we were presented with a less than desirable shot as the entire side of the castle facing the bridge was covered in scaffolding.
The castle itself was very ornate. Just about every surface of the rooms was adorned in some way. It made me think that Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria might have taken some decorating tips from Liberace; it was a little over the top.
The entire castle was meant to pay homage to Wagner’s work. Unfortunately the music room which was intended for his operatic works was never used by King Ludwig, however, now there are yearly concerts performed in that room.
The highlights of the castle, however, are eclipsed by the shameless commercialism, which regrettably, permeates what is otherwise an unforgettable fairytale setting. The efforts of the castle’s management to make this a positive experience is underwhelming. It’s clear they have no intention of attracting return visitors or that there is any thought given to the overall impression visitors take away from the site.
The guides herd tourists through a maze of rope-lines before entering the castle. Upon entry, with 70 others visitors, the guides give curt descriptions of the rooms while the tourists are packed elbow-to-elbow. There’s no time to linger to look at any art or other curiosities; another guide immediately ushers the stragglers into the next room. There’s no respect for the fact that most of the visitors traveled many thousands of kilometers to see this place. For those with the misfortune of being at the back of the group, the descriptions are barely audible. Descriptions usually begin before all of the group members even enter the room. Apparently, the whole thing is subject to very strict timelines and it’s all about revenue. They’ll gladly sell you a 20 euro poster of the photo everyone wants to take from the Marien bridge (but isn’t able to) and 8 euro currywurst, which costs 3-4 euro everywhere else in Germany.
To exit the castle, visitors are required to walk through no less than two gift shops, which serve as traffic bottlenecks to the hordes seeking to make a swift exit so they can join the queue at another attraction at the castle.
If you come to Germany in the summer, this castle is not worth the trouble. Go to Burg Eltz. Neuschwanstein looks great from the outside. It graces the pages of many European photo books and, from the outside, it is in an idyllic setting. Most people don’t realize, however, that the castle isn’t that old and was never completed or lived-in for any meaningful period. If you’re looking for a medieval experience, avoid this one or come in the fall/winter to avoid the crowds.
On the drive from Bavaria to Bonn, we made some tactical errors by heeding the advice of our GPS and were initiated into a German summer holiday traffic tradition: The Stau. GPS is intended to spot traffic jams and route you around them. Ours merely stated the obvious when we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of a stau (traffic jam) of epic proportions.
In hindsight, we should have decided to travel in the middle of the night. We didn’t expect that every car in Germany and the Netherlands would be on the A3 at the same time. Camper vans, trailers, long-haul trucks and millions of Germans and Hollanders returning from the beaches of the Mediterranean or the mountains of Austria converged on the same roadway. What should have taken 6 hours at the most, quickly deteriorated into a 12 hour ordeal of endless stau on the autobahns of Germany. So much for the unrestricted sections where you can drive as fast as you want. The Ultimate Driving Machine was reduced to the Ultimate Idling Machine for several hours.
The stau finally broke up at around midnight. We finally made it back to Bonn at around 1:00. Next time, we’re organizing our road trips from mid-week to mid-week.
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