Castle day from Munich

Libby, I think switching the days around would be best. Our son has been on all of the luges you have referenced. The one single most important thing we have learned is that they will shut the luge down if there is even a slight drizzle. The best time for the luge is early in the day. Clouds build up by the afternoon. For the Tegelberg luge, after it rains, the personnel have to go slowly down the luge wiping the rain off. I think it's because this is a metal luge. We were there for several hours--waiting for the rain to pass and waiting for the luge to reopen. Since you live in San Anton and you don't have access to summer luges, I would highly recommend going to at least one. Your kids will love it. The scenery at Tegelberg is awesome. Have fun making lifetime memories with your family--we did!

Susan, according to our guide, they think the "showers" were built for Russian POWs but never used. They can't find any gas residue in the tiles, bricks, etc.

"Ovens" were used after they used up all of the available cemetery space in the village of Dachau. In fact, eventually oven usage was so continual they had to build new, bigger ones. As I said, a lot of people did die in the camp of the hard work and squalid conditions.

BTW, you can use the Bayern-Ticket (B-T) for travel to the castles and back, even if you leave Munich before 9 AM on a workday. Just get, in addition to the B-T, 2 adult 3 zone tickets at €7,20 each and 2 child 3 zone tickets at €1,20 each (€16,80 total). These will cover you to Geltendorf, which you reach after 9; from there on, the rest of the day, all your transportation will be covered by the B-T.

The B-T will also cover you from the Hohenschwangau bus stop to the Tegelbergbahn stop (but not the luge itself). The B-T is valid until 3 AM the next morning, so you can leave Füssen really late.

I'm always overwhelmed and humbled by the replies to my posts - thanks, everybody.

Susan, I believe the "showers" at Dachau were not used. They are there, though.

Denise, thanks for the encouragement! We took our kids on a trip to Paris three years ago and are still talking about it. Selfishly, I love having our kids to ourselves for two whole weeks!

Lee, you are amazing. I hadn't been to your website before and found it very helpful - love the photos.

So here are my final questions, summarizing from above. If the 7:52 Munich-Fussen train arrives at 9:57, will I be able to walk (run?) to the ticket booth, pick up our reserved tickets, and walk (run?) back to the train station in time to make the 10:05 bus? Will I make the 10:15? Should I make our reservations for 11:00? If so, what happens if I'm not at the ticket counter by 10:00 (I understand that I must pick up the tickets an hour before)?

Thanks again so very much!
Libby

When we visited last summer, if you reserved tickets for both castles you were assigned entrance times that were two hours apart, with Hohenschwangau first. So for example we got 9 AM and 11 AM entrance times. I think if you buy the tickets separately you can play with the times a bit, but I checked while there, and you would need 1.5 hours from the start of one tour to the start of the other. So if you took your first tour at 11:00 and you second at 1:00, I would think that was all you could do, assuming you mean you have to be in Salzberg by 18:00. We (family of four including two teens) enjoyed the Hohenschangau tour more than Neuschwanstein. We also found in general that things like depositing/collecting luggage from storage take way longer than you think they should.

Keltenblitz loosely translates to "Celtic lightning".

A Rodel is a luge or bobsled. Bahn is a "conveyance", so a Rodelbahn is the "luge run". Sommer is "summer", since it's not runners on ice.

I think they are just two names for the same thing. I've never been on any of them, so I couldn't comment on a difference.

I have no idea how long taking the Tegelbergbahn might take, but I personally go to Germany to do things that are typically German. I have a summer luge a couple miles from my house in Colorado. I'd see both castles.

Information about the castle and tickets can be found at www.hohenschwangau.de. There they state the you should pick up you ticket on hour before you first entrance time. The bus leaves Füssen Bahnhof a few minutes after the train arrives and take 8 min to get to the bus stop just around the corner from the ticket kiosk.

The Bahn schedule shows the train getting in as 9:57 and the bus leaving the station at 10:05, arriving at the bus stop in Hohenschwangau at 10:13. It shouldn't take 17 min to walk to the ticket Kiosk and the reservation pickup line is usually pretty short. (See my webpage about getting to the castles.)

I see a connection with the bus leaving the Hohenschwangau bus stop at 13:44, with a 12 minute connection at Füssen Bahnhof, 20 minutes in Munich, getting into Salzburg at 18:09. There is an earlier connection getting to Salzburg around 5 PM, but it leaves Hohenschwangau at 12:46. I don't think that is enough time to see both castles.

How long are you going to be in Munich? Can you do this trip a day earlier, come back just to Munich, and have all day to see the castles?

Lee, we can move this day forward and have a whole day. Our plan was to see Dachau one day and the castles the next - flipping them makes everything easier, since Dachau will only take about a half day.

We were trying to have a "happy" day after Dachau, especially for our kids (they are the sensitive, thinking, dwelling types). But I guess we can have a "happy" day in Salzberg instead. Would make the logistics easier. I'll put the SOM tour on our first Salzberg day - that's happy.

BTW, the Dachau Memorial (KZ-Gedenkstätte) is not open on Mondays.

I didn't find Dachau to be as depressing as I expected. It was a work camp. Many people died there of the hard work and bad conditions, but it was not an extermination camp.

The trip by S-Bahn to Dachau station only takes 21 minutes. You'll have 10 minutes to catch the bus (its stop, in front of the station, is well marked) and it's 7 minutes to the Memorial. I think the English tours are at 11:00 and 13:00, but if you want to get an early start (they open at 9:00), they rent audio guides for about the same price as a tour. If you want to store your luggage at the Hauptbahnhof, the lockers are right off the end of track 26, next to the steps to the S-Bahn station.

A Munich metro (MVV) XXL Partner Tageskarte, for €12,30, will cover all of your travel (S-Bahn and bus) to and from the Memorial. Or, depending on the train you take to Salzburg, a Bayern-Ticket, for €28, instead of the MVV ticket will cover all of your travel (all four of you) for the entire day, for Munich metro and a regional train to Salzburg. If you pay attention to the date, you can purchase the Bayern-Ticket the night before and use it to get to the Hbf the next morning.

Depending on how far your Salzburg hotel is from the Hbf, there are direct regional (RE) connections from Munich leaving at 14:46 and 15:42, getting to Salzburg at 16:42 and 17:42, respectively.

Lee, I went to Dachau in 1975 and we were shown "the showers" where they did exterminate people, and the ovens. It's been a long time, but has that changed?

No, the castle ticket kiosk is in Hohenschwangau. You get off the train (9:57) and immediately catch the bus from in front of the Bahnhof, Haltestelle 2 (10:05), get off in Hohenschwangau (10:13), walk around the corner to the ticket kiosk. I think you can get there by 10:30, so make the reservations for 11:30. I don't know why they want you to pick up the tickets an hour early, because it isn't that far to the first castle, Schloß Hohenschwangau (confusing, isn't it. The castle and the town are both called Hohenschwangau).

Actually, since you will now have all day to see the castles, I might make the reservations for a little later (12:00?) and have lunch first. There are several restaurants in that area. One about where I took the pictures ("from the TI", "to the Kiosk"). Just beyond the Ticket Kiosk, almost to Schloß Hohenschwangau, is Hotel Müller. It looks expensive, but when I was there (2 times in 2002), it was not too bad, the food was good, and it's a short walk after lunch from there to your first castle. The trail and steps to Schloß Hohenschwangau are just to the left of the hotel, looking from the street.

Thanks, Lee and Libby, for the updated info. It's been 35 yrs since I was there and obviously they've learned more since then and the info has changed.

I think Lee's suggestion to have lunch before touring the castles is excellent advice.

Great website Lee!

Lee, thanks so much. I'm not sure how I missed that one tidbit of information (location of the ticket office) but I'm all good now!