Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein, October 2012

We (my husband and I are in our mid-40s and my mom is 70) found an empty locker at the Munich train station, and stowed our bags for the day. We took the Regional Express (RE 57504) at 7:51 to Fussen. We took a taxi from Fussen to the castles. I could tell that taking the taxi kept us one step ahead of the rest of the crowd that took the bus. I didn't realize just how many wonderful little shops would be right around the ticket center. We picked up our castle tickets, bought bus tickets for the ride up to Mary's Bridge, did some shopping, bought bratwursts and munched them while climbing the hill to Hohenschwangau. I really liked our Hohenschwangau tour guide. I asked her about the descendants of the royal family, and she said that they are wonderful people. We walked from the exit of Hohenschwangau past the lake to the bus stop (glad we had already bought our tickets so we didn't have to wait in that line). OK, I admit it; I was scared on the bridge. I couldn't stay long. I put my backpack in the lockers they have at the entrance to Neuschwanstein, but my husband said to get it out because the tour wouldn't let out at the same place, and he wasn't going to hike around to retrieve it for me. We watched the 20-minute video at the end of the tour. We took the horse-drawn carriage back down to the ticket center area. When we were walking to the stop for the bus back to Fussen, we saw an empty taxi so we took it instead. We caught RE 57513 at 16:04 back to Munich. We retrieved our luggage, and made it onto the train to Salzburg.