Fussen and castles with a bum knee

https://www.hohenschwangau.de/en/visitor-information/how-to-reach-the-castles

There's a slight incline from the main parking lot up to the ticket centre.

THanks Gundersen, that map looks super useful for getting the lay of the land but it won't load for me! (Uh...maybe my laptop is actually using memory for, like work stuff...how dare it.) I'll make a note to check it later.

So looking at the map, it looks like the carriage has a "15 m uphill walk" from the drop off. Does anyone know, is the walk from the Marienbrucke shuttle stop any easier? (Also noted as 15 m., but described as "steep".) Not sure the Marienbrucke shuttle will run in December, though.

There are big coach busses moving people up to N’stein (love your abbreviation btw) and Mary’s Bridge. There’s thousands of tourists moving through here, so this runs constantly.

It’s been some years, but I don’t recall much in the way of strenuous or uphill walking. Though navigating Hohenschwangau will be some effort I’m sure. Hopefully, it won’t be too bad for him.

Was at Neuschwanstein in May. There is a slight uphill walk from the parking lot to the bus stop and the horse drawn carriages, anywhere from 25 to 200 yards depending where you have to park. You can probably also go drop off the person with the bad knee by the bus stop and then park and walk back solo. The horse drawn carriages take you to the base of the castle, then you have an uphill walk to get to the actual castle. The bus takes you to the top of the castle and Mary’s Bridge, then you have a downhill walk to the castle. Something that would be cheap and knee-friendly and still give you some castle thrills would be to ride the bus to Mary’s bridge, take the short walk uphill (maybe 10 yards) to actually get on Mary’s bridge, and spend some time there taking fabulous pictures of the castle at a distance. Then you can catch the bus there again to take you back to your car. Very little walking. (You may need to check their website and see if they will allow you to ride the bus without a ticket to go inside the castle, I can’t recall the specifics. I think they do, because the bus is a separate fee from the castle tour.)

If you want to walk from where the bus drops you off down to the castle, it is probably 150 yards and is a fairly steep grade. You can also take the horse drawn carriages back instead of the bus if you don’t want to walk uphill. Personally, having had knee issues myself in the past, I find walking downhill to be more painful than walking uphill but that’s just my opinion. Either way you slice it, it’s a lengthy walk of at least 100 yards to and from the carriages and the bus stop from the castle. Also, inside the castle, there are tons and tons of stairs. If you don’t want to go inside the castle, I would not go through the hassle of walking up to it because you really can’t see it that well when you are close to it because it’s so big. Truthfully, the absolute best view was from Mary’s bridge.

Oh, one more thing to add. If it is raining, the bus is far preferable to the horse drawn carriages. It was raining when we were there, and the people who had reservations for the horses looked absolutely miserable.

I've never taken the bus but it stops around the intersection of Bleckenhaustrasse and Brunnstubenweg. If using Google Maps, zoom in. Some of the photo spheres give an indication of how steep the path is leading to the bridge. Don't know how bummy the bum knee is.

Thank you, great info all around. I have read that Marianbrucke is closed in for construction but not sure for how long--and can be closed when it's snowy or icy (we will arrive Mon Dec 2 and leave Tuesday, not arrive Tuesday as I previously posted).

Also good insight about walking down vs up; it's not my knee and I tend to make assumptions that may or may not be correct! If Marianbrucke is open, it sounds do-able by bus, if we can take it without the tour ticket.

I believe our hotel also provides a local transit pass, so we could park our car there and take public transit to the castles if that's better. We are booked at Altstadthotel Zum Hechten.

(And I like the abbreviation too, but can't take credit--leveraging what I saw on another page!)

Or perhaps we should come back early the next day/Tuesday? I understand there is a small Christmas market in the town, which can keep us busy. We plan to drive to Salzburg on Tuesday and hope to be there before dark, so would want to leave around lunchtime.

(One-night stands are not our usual travel style; we will be in Sudtirol 4 nights and Salzburg 4 nights, but thought we could squeeze Fussen in between the two. If it's impractical, better to know now and we'll stop in Innsbruck instead.)

Thank you again.

I've visited Neuschawanstein twice, about 20 years apart. Both times I was in the area. I think it's a decent visit but wouldn't go out of the way for it.

Innsbruck has a good, compact old town and I recommend stopping off at Schloss Ambras.