Castles from Fussen

Every visitor is required to buy a ticket for entrance at a specific time. You'll congregate in the courtyard and wait for your number to be displayed on the screen. At that time you may enter via the turnstiles and an OFFICIAL guide from within the castle will escort you in. NO other guides may take you in.

You can hire a tour company to go buy your ticket for you and escort you to the courtyard and stand with you and hold your hand and tell you when your number is displayed...but you can do that ALL on your own.

The walk up to the castle is steep and long. You also have the option to ride the bus to the top or take a horse drawn carriage. Both of these methods will get you "almost" to the castle courtyard entrance. Again you'll just buy a bus ticket or carriage ticket when you get there.

That's kind of what I thought, but it's kind of confusing on their site - since you need to arrive 90 minutes before the tour and they said that the bus/carriage lines can be very long. Trying to figure out timing to buy the tix. So, if you get a tour at 10, you'd need to arrive by 8:30am.

Some say you MUST go on a tour which allows you to "skip the line"

I depends on what you mean by "MUST" and by "a tour". You cannot just walk around in the castle by yourself; if you want to see the inside, you MUST go in with a "tour" by one of the castle's guides and stay with the group. But that tour is just from the front door of the castle to the gift shop just before the exit.

There are also third party tours that take you out to the castle by public transportation or by charter bus, and charge you a pretty penny for the service. You don't have to take one of these tours, and, IMO, they are a waste of money. The advertised price of these tours does not include the price of the guide tour of the castle, but the guide does take your money and gets the tickets for you (hardly worth $50). You do get to skip the line (the line of people who show up at the ticket kiosk without reservations), but if you have reservations you collect your tickets at a much shorter line. The last time I was there, there was no one ahead of me in the ticket pickup line. The third party tour does not take you up to the castle - you walk, or take a horse carriage - but with 1½ hrs from ticket pickup to tour time, that's not a problem. I remember it being a walk of about a half hour, maybe a little more. There are restaurants by the ticket kiosks in Hohenschwangau, and if you don't want to walk up the hill with a full stomach, there is a restaurant about 2/10th mile from the castle.

If you make reservations in advance, make them for about 2:30 pm (14:30); that gives you a half hour (which you won't need) at the ticket kiosk to pick up you reserved tickets. Leave Munich just before 10:00 with a Bayern-Ticket (25€ for 1 person, 31€ for 2), arrive in Füssen at 11:55 and take the bus to Hohenschwangau from the bus stop in front of the station. It leaves at 12:05 and gets to Hohenschwangau at 12:13. The bus is included with the Bayern-Ticket. It's a short walk up the hill to the ticket kiosk - it shouldn't take you 17 minutes.

With a Bayern-Ticket, you can't start using the ticket before 9 AM, but if you go on a weekend day, there is no limit to when you can start If you purchase an MVV inner zone ticket for 2,90€/P, you can use it for the train connection as far as Pasing where you leave after 9, and use the Bayern-Ticket from there. In that case move all the times up an hour (e.g., make the reservation for 1:30 PM.

If you drive to the castle from Munich, it will take about 2 hours, but provide plenty of extra time when you make your reservation to account for traffic jams, getting lost, etc.

Great advice. . In fact, we're driving from Fussen so will aim for a 10am tour. We're early risers, so getting there by 8:30 shouldn't be a problem and I'm hoping it will be a bit less crowded. I sort of figured we could do it ourselves, but it's a bit confusing, especially getting there 90 minutes early. We're thinking we'll do the King's tour of the two castles there. Understand that you must go with a group....

Thanks!

OK, I'm sorry, I thought you were coming from Munich. There really is an overpriced tour of the castle from Füssen. Most of what they do is deliver your $16 Neuschwanstein ticket to you for $48 (that 3% adds up, doesn't it?).

We're thinking we'll do the King's tour of the two castles there.
Understand that you must go with a group....

Who is feeding you this hogwash? You don't have to do the King's tour with a group. Just order your King's Tickets online for 25€/P and pick it up at the short "pickup" line at the ticket kiosk. They will give you the times for you tour at each castle.

Just ordered our Kong’s tix. The website was a bit wonky but finally got through!

Königsticket or Koenigsticket.

Hope you enjoy your visit. I thought Neuschwanstein was over-the-top impressive, but my wife liked Hohenschwangau better. Hohenschwangau is an actual lived-in castle, where Ludwig lived as a boy and dreamed of building a castle on the rocky outcropping he could see and hike to from his home.

In German Neuschwanstein (and Hohenschwangau) is called a 'Schloss'. Schloss = palace, Burg = castle. In English they are called castles although they lack nearly all characteristics of a castle. They are really fake castles.

they lack nearly all characteristics of a castle

I find the distinction between the two to be quite blurred. I've seen real castle the look less like castles than some Schlosses (Schlösser). The Reichsburg appears to be a castle (it's even called a Burg) and actually was before it was destroyed, but it was rebuilt to be an elegant home while appearing to be a castle. Hohenzollernburg is also called a Burg but is less of one than Neuschwanstein. I find a lot of similarities between the Marksburg, which really was a Burg, and Neuschwanstein.

I find the distinction between the two to be quite blurred.

It is not clear-cut. Etymologically a »Schloss« is something that is or can be closed (against invaders), i.e. an ablaut derivation from the verb »schließen«; a »Burg« is a place on top of a hill, an ablaut formation to »Berg« `mountain'. In (late) medieval times, both could designate the same thing. But from the 17th century onward, as traditional castles became useless because of the stronger firearms, the word »Schloss«, whose meaning had no such toponymic limitation as »Burg«, prevailed for every building owned by a nobleman, be it on top of a mountain or in a city, while for modern fortified places the term »Festung« (fortress) came up. To make things even more complicated, the romantics of the 19th century built "Burgen" again. From that time on, the name "Burg" or "Schloss" only indicates what the building was to be in the imagination of its builder ("Schloss Neuschwanstein" vs. "Burg Hohenzollern"); there are no technical criteria anymore.

How can we get to the castles from Füssen without a car if we don’t want to take a packaged tour. Is there Uber, bus or maybe a taxi? Won’t be renting a car, so that’s not an option.

There are buses from Füssen Bahnhof to Hohenschwangau (and return). They leave the Bahnhof about 5 minuted after the hour, 10 minutes after the train from Munich arrives, and take about 8 minutes. They also make a stop in town, at Pulverturm. There are additional buses between those buses, at irregular times. The first five-minutes-after bus leaves at 8:05; there is an earlier one at 7:30, getting to Hohenschwangau at 7:36. There are even earlier buses, but they take roundabout routes with changes and take about an hour.

You can find the schedules on the German Rail website. Enter "Fuessen" to "Hohenschwangau".

The fare is very nominal.

So I just got my ticket - I had asked for a 10am tour using the King's ticket ( since you need to arrive 90 minutes early to pick up your tickets) and ended up with a tour of the first castle at 9:55 but the second one is at 12:55 - I was trying to avoid such a late start. Guess maybe I should have asked for an earlier tour. Didn't realize how long this all takes......