Neuschwanstein, English Garden & Bayern München Stadium

München is beautiful, breathtaking and welcoming. 
Everyone speaks english, which is convenient for all the tourist. I missed saying my few sayings in german haha. To start our trip, we walked from our apartments to Erfurt main train station (Hauptbahnhof), which took us 45minutes. We each brought one backpack for the weekend. Our train left from Erfurt at 5am saturday morning, we took an IC to Fulda and then transferred to an ICE to our final destination, München. The total trip was about five hours. We all struggled and got a few hours of sleep as much as possible. It is hard to sleep at that time, since there is day light on this part of the world that early! I had to wrap my jacket around my eyes and put earplugs in to be able to attempt sleeping, I am not exactly sure how successful it was. Transferring trains was hilarious, for me at least haha. Our first train was running late and we had no idea if the other train was waiting or what platform it was on. So we heard the announcement in german saying something and the only word Christian and I picked up was "acht,"which is eight. So we figured that meant platform and since people starting to run, so did we and we headed to platform 8. Seeing everyone run, half asleep with their backpacks on not knowing exactly why or where we were running was hilarious. Miraculously, we found platform 8, got on and found our seats that we had reserved. We were glad we had reserved the seats, maybe it would have left without us otherwise? we don't know enough about the system to know for sure. We made it to München to find a ton of people in the center of the city "Marienplatz!" To our surprise, it was München's birthday!!!! There was a stage, where actors dressed up were being announced and people were cheering and cannons from a top building were being fired. An amazing welcome and great timing to go visit München! It was raining a bit, but we all had umbrellas or ponchos, so we were good. We visited St Peters Church and it was gorgeous! Filled with gold everything. The church was very well taken care of. We paid 1 Euro to go up to see an amazing view. We went up 306 stairs!!!! I had my backpack on so it was such a work out!!!! My friend Megan had to motivate me to keep going, but I made it! So worth itttt!!!! We stayed a good time up there, enjoying the beautiful view :)
 Kristin had her "Rick Steve's Guide to Germany" Book so we followed Rick's advice and went to eat at this fancy looking restaurant where the waitress was dressed as a typical Bavarian lady. I tried the München bratwurst and it was different, a little too soft but good! It was really pale, but with their special mustard it was pretty good. After the late lunch, we checked the the Residenz Museum, which has different tours that you can get into. I think they have three. We didn't really know, but we just wanted to check it. So two of us checked some amazing rooms, I think there were like a TON and were BEAUTIFUL from what I heard. I got to go into the Treasure room! Definitely a girly kind of tour, in my opinion. I got to see some amazinggg crowns and jewels. I didn't even think stuff like that existed. It blew my mind how much detail went in to every single piece! It reminded me that I am a princess ♔! God is the king, and I'm the princess, we all are! It also reminded me of Haggai 2:8 "The silver is mine and the gold is mine,' declares the LORD Almighty." :)
After that, we checked-in to our youth international hostal. It was pretty good, it was clean! Ariel, Evelyn and I decided to go to the store next door called Karstadt to check it out. We all got really cute scarfs that kept us warm for the rest of the trip.
We knew it would be fresh, like 70s and 60s but it was actually kinda chilly, so I'm glad we got scarfs! and cute ones too! :)
For dinner, we wanted something cheap and nearby since it was raining, so we had some McDs which to my surprise had more mayo than usual, but I liked it! Europeans actually like mayo and so do I, it's good to have that change!

Sunday morning, we woke up super early and had breakfast at the hostal, european style: bread with ham and cheese and hot chocolate! that's what I had at least, they had more options. We took a train to Füssen, the town where the castles are at! It took about two hours to get there, but the view out of the window was awesome! We made the mistake to go to the bathroom when we got there because we missed the bus that takes you from the station to the castles, so we walked 5k, which was worth it, since the way to the castles is beautiful! We saw some cows, the city and gorgeous vegetation on our way. When we got there, we made the line to pay for the castle tours. We were going to reserve them online, but we don't have a printer in any of our apartments so it wasn't really possible. When we got to the window it was about 1:30pm and the next tours was like at 4. So we had to split up, only five of us got to see both castles and the rest could only see 1 castle. We were short in time because the last train from Füssen back to München left at 7pm and we had to also catch the connecting bus from castle area to Füssen train station! Sooooo Ariel, Megan, Travis, Christian and I were the lucky five that got to go on both castles, we just didn't know we would also get an amazing workout haha 
To the first castle, Hohenschwangau, we took the path that the map showed that was supposed to take 15-20 minutes and we made it in 10! Thatttt castle was so cute. It was a queen floor and a king floor. One of the rooms had a secret door in the wall! Those existtt too haha. All the walls had amazing paintings, making it look like a wall paper. The queen and king had their bedroom and their changing room and all this rooms just for them. SO PRETTY! They had paintings of stories that they liked and history and such. What I found interesting was that they had a lot of face statues of their sons. In one room, there was babies statues and then their youth statues and then when they were older. It kind of reminded me when parents have their kid pictures on the walls from all stages on their lives. Its the same thing, just statue instead of pictures! haha. Parents really do like their sons! They had two sons and one of them is not famous because he had mental issues. The famous one is the one that built the other castle, Neuschwanstein! He only got to live there 117 days! He didn't even see it complete or enjoy it to the fullest. how sad. This castle is even prettier. But no queen side this time. Ludwig was engaged but broke his engagement without giving anyone any reason. He definitely liked wood. Everything is made out of wood, dark wood, making the rooms seem very elegant but depressing almost since it has lack of light. The castle looks so new, because it is! It wasn't build no long ago and no one has really used it. It was AMAZING to get to look both castles inside and outside. The view from the castles is indescribable, it took my breath away. You can see lake and beautiful city and beautiful trees and filled with just green and hills filled with more green. Just beautiful. Let me tell you how we got to the Neuschwanstein thou! From hohenschwangau we ran down the stairs and started the hike up that was supposed to take 45 minutes. We could have taken a shuttle but there was a long line and it could have just made it longer or we weren't willing to risk it. Since we had made the other trail in half the time it said in the map, it gave us hope for this trail too buttttt this time it was uphill !!!!! I walked like 5 minutes and I was already sore. So I decided I would run up the hill, so I did. And that just gave me the strength I need it to speed walk up the mountain. I made it! I did not run all the way but that helped for sure! We made the 45min trail in 20! So we had a bit more time and we wanted to make it to Mary's Bridge, which was even higher but the view was supposed to be good. So we ran there pretty much since we were short on time still. We made it to the bridge in 10 minutes and the view was the BEST!!!!! Of course, we were all sweaty but it felt so rewarding to have made it to the top, the view was so good! Don't recommend it if you are afraid of heights because there is a creek below it. We all took pics super fast and headed back down to see the tour of the second castle, which I already told you about :)


After the castles, our workout had not finished since we had to walk all the 45min hill downhill super fast to catch the 6:20 connecting bus to Füssen train station. But we made it and made it back to München for a good night sleep!

On Monday, we had another good breakfast and headed out to Marienplatz again and then to the English Garden! The English Garden was HUGE! We only saw less than half but it was gorgeous! Pond with swans and ducks and pretty birds. Good Biergarten by the Chinese tower and some horses even! Then we went to the Olympics Stadium from 72! So awesomeeee!!!! The soccer stadium there was closed since they were getting ready for a concert but after that we went to the Bayern München Stadium!!! :)  And that one was open so we got to go in! So pretty! I realized I have never been to a soccer game, like a real one, so I really want to now!!! We'll see! After all, the Women's World Cup is this summer in Germany! Starts next Sunday!!!! But apparently it's not that big, but we'll see!


:)


Cynth♔