Spending time at Hohenschwangau

At the base of the Neuschwanstein hill (by the ticket sales point) there are several hotels with restaurants serving Bavarian fare and Bavarian refreshment.

Not the "Caponord Catfish" is it? That would be too funny.

So we actually stayed a couple nights at the hotel right under the Neuschwanstein Castle (at the top of the road - stay there and you get to drive up and down it). The restaurant there had reasonable and decent food - although they close early at the end of the day.

If this is the Caponord Catfish - send me a PM or shout our on the forum (fe2o3).

Anyway cheers!

Just up the hill from the ticket kiosk (RH side going up) is the Hotel Müller. It's the white building with the horse carts parked in front. They have a table-service restaurant. I've eaten there twice and had a good meal at a reasonable price. Farther down on the opposite side, almost across from the bus stop, was small restaurant where you order at the counter and take your food to a table. I had a Weiswurst there.

Allow plenty of time to get from one to the other. You have to go down one steep hill, then up another one. If you aren't walking, you still need to get to the bus and wait for the next one. And maybe spend some time in line. You will want time at the Hohenschwangau to see the garden, admire the views, maybe have a look in the souvenir shop. You can do that before or after the tour.

This probably takes too much time, but something to consider maybe after you have seen the castles. Take a walk around the Schwansee, not to be confused with the Alpsee. The walk just around the lake is easy and not too long (2 hours from the parking area for the castles). You can get some nice views of both castles with the mountains in the background and it gets you away from the thousands of tourists. These sites have a few pics:
http://www.allgaeu-ausfluege.de/05schwansee.htm
http://www.suitehotel-neuschwanstein.de/de/blog/wandern/der-schwansee-in-hohenschwangau.html

They opened a museum a few years ago about the Wittelsbach family (the royal house of Bavaria). I believe the intention was to provide a time filler between touring the two castles. I have not visited, so I couldn't say if its worthwhile.

Thank you everyone for the helpful replies! Looks like we'll have plenty to do (and eat!)

P.S. Not the Caponord Catfish, but sounds very intriguing!

I believe it's Hotel Mueller that we've eaten at the 3x we've been to Neuschwanstein. Nice lunch and awesome raspberry creme torte.

We just did both castle tours this past May and pretty much the same time schedule.. with walking, taking pictures and enjoying our time there really wasn't much free time in between. The walk depending on how fast you go can take about 30 minutes unless you choose to do a bus or carriage.. we actually took the bus to Neuschwanstein after we visited Hohenschwangau due to it raining a little and we had lost track of time and wouldn't of made it in time walking.. during our 5 day stay in Schwangau we hiked to both castles a few times for pictures and views. Also in Neuschwanstein I think its on the 4th floor is a restaurant where we enjoyed apfelstrudel and hot chocolate but had many other foods available and the view was amazing. Hope you have a good time..

Agree with above posters.
We just did the 2 castles at 9:50 and 12:25 time slots. With all the walking up and down we really did not have a lot of time to spare.
Walked up to Hohenschwangau then back down- then we took the bus up to Neuschwanstein because it was raining quite hard- we waited about 10 min for the bus- then had maybe 35/40 min wait for our entry time once we actually arrived at castle courtyard- so we ducked undercover and ate sandwiches I had packed.

IIRC there was a snack stand/cafe in front of Neuschwanstein- I would suggest getting up to the castle first- then see how much time you really have- maybe stop at cafe for a snack/drink.