Castle. No, Not the Nathan Fillion Show on ABC.

The Thursday after my trip to Dresden, I went to Füssen, to see Neuschwanstein, the castle that is the basis for Sleeping Beauty's Castle in Disneyland. As I left from Ulm, I really had no idea where Füssen was, other than that it was in Bavaria. As the train approached Füssen, I realized it was right next to the Alps!

So I took a couple of pictures from the train.

I stopped for lunch before heading up to the castle, and had this awesome sandwich, with ham, chicken, cucumbers, egg, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, and some sort of familiar-tasting spread. Also, there were enough potato wedges to feed a small family.

I had some King Ludwig Dark Beer, too. Ludwig's the guy who had the castle built, by the way.

Some more shots of the Alps from the bus on the way to the castle.

Way up there is the castle.

I bought a ticket. Unfortunately, it was 2:30, and the earliest I could get a ticket for was 5:30. But I figured I'd just hike up there and kill a few hours.

As you can see, the castle's kind of up there. It's about a 40 minute hike.

Here's a stream I passed on the way up.

If you hike another 10-15 minutes past the castle, you get to a bridge called Marienbrücke. There's a great view of Neuschwanstein from there.

See? I told you. And in the background is Füssen, and the Alpsee (a lake).

Here's a view straight down from the bridge.

Here's me and the castle. Two notes: 1) I probably could have lined everything up a little better, but this was my 5th attempt, and it wasn't working out so well, so I gave up. 2) I was listening to music on the train ride over. I turned off the music, but accidentally left my headphones in all day. Whoops.

So, on the way up to the castle, I had my ticket in my back pocket. It was also cold out that day, so I was wearing a jacket. But when you're hiking up a mountain, you warm up a little bit. So I took my jacket off. I'm assuming that this is the point where my ticket fell out of my pocket. I didn't realize this until I got to the top. So I didn't get to go inside the castle. Don't be mad. They don't allow pictures inside, so as far as you're know, I may well have gone inside the castle and had a blast. On the bright side, it gave me more time to explore the town.

This is Luitpold, a Prince of Bavaria.

Here's some really cool fountains in Kaiser-Maximilian Platz. The top stones are not connected to the rest of the fountain at all, and they spin only from the water coming out of the fountains. Pretty cool, huh?

Part of the old medieval wall.

St. Sebastian Church.

The grave of Dominic Quaglio, a painter who helped decorate the other castle in Füssen, Hohenschwangau Castle, which I actually took no pictures of.

Franciscan graveyard.

A memorial for babies who died before birth.

Here's St. Francis.

And a Franciscan Monastery.

Just in case you didn't believe me, here's a sign that says it is a Franciscan Monastery.

Here is the St. Magnus Basilica, and the adjoining Benedictine Monastery.

And here is St. Magnus, I think.

Mary and Baby Jesus.

Dragon-faun?

The stairway to this pulpit-thingy is different than the others I've seen.

Ooh, a baptismal font.

After visiting the basilica, it was time to get to the train station. I took one last picture of the Alps as I left.

All right. I took one more trip in Germany, to Berlin. My post on that trip should be up soon. Tchüs!