Saturday, May 14, 2011

Neuschwanstein, the castle of a fairy-tale king

Who would have thought a fairy-tale castle could really exist in reality.Have you seen Cinderella castle in Disney World? Magnificent huh?


Guess what? Cinderella castle was actually inspired  from the Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Germany.Walt Disney got inspired when he saw Neuschwanstein, one of the castles that he used as inspiration to create Cinderella castle in Disney World.Sleeping Beauty castle in Disneyland is also based on the bavarian castle with some french inspirations.Wow wee..

Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany

 I'm not gonna write much about the history of the castle but instead I'm gonna enlighten you all with some of the interesting facts on the Neuschwanstein castle.

  • The castle was initially known as New Hohenschwangau Castle.But after the death of King Ludwig II, it was renamed Neuschwanstein which means "New Swan Stone". 
  •  King Ludwig II was the owner of the castle.Before the castle even nearing completion, he was declared mad, then arrested and removed from the castle.He was then found dead few days later with mysterious cause of death.
  • The designer of the castle named Christian Jank. He wasn't an architect but actually a theatrical designer.
  • The castle took 17 years to build, with about 200 – 300 craftsmen working on site every day.
  • The amount of building material was enormous with 513 short tons of Salzburg marble, 1710 short tons of sandstone, and 400,000 bricks.
  • Many items in the castle have the shape or picture of a swan which is the king's favourite animal.
  • Neuschwanstein castle is one of the most famous tourist destination in Europe, having about 1.3 million visitors per year, with number of visitors in summer being as high as 6000 per day.
  • The castle was one of the finalists in the selection of the New Seven Wonders of the World.
  • Neuschwanstein is one of the most photographed castles in the world.

Remember the road trip I was on? The actual plan was to go from Duisburg to Ulm to Biberach and back to Ulm before going straight home.Hee..but we did a little detour.Detour means to deviate from using a direct,usually shorter route...So we terhegeh-hegeh took the longer way and were heading towards south, nearing the border between Germany and Austria.It was a last minute plan to go to Neuschwanstein but it was a great decision and visiting the castle was the highlight of our road trip.Yeah!

Heading to Königsschlösser (King's castles)

We bought a group ticket to go into the Neuschwanstein castle.English tour guide came with the ticket.You'll see the tour number and your entry time on the ticket.

The castle background behind us is the Hohenschwangau castle.You can find two castles here in Allgau.One is the Neuschwanstein castle and the other one is named Hohenschwangau castle.The distance between the two castles is about 1 hour by foot.So we only chose to enter the Neuschwanstein castle.

 
  The views of the surrounding before taking the bus or horse-carriages towards the castle.You have three alternatives to reach the castle.By foot which will take about 40 mins, by horse-carriage which will be romantic but pretty expensive or by shuttle-bus,the cheapest and most practical way to reach the castle.

We took the shuttle bus, each person paid 1.80 euro.Advantage of taking the bus is that it'll stop at Mary's Bridge, where you'll get a magnificent view of the Neuschwanstein castle.You'll then have to walk for about 15 minutes before reaching the castle from Mary's Bridge.

Signboard showing the castle and it's surroundings.

Mary's Bridge

The view of Marienbrücke ( Mary's Bridge) from far

Gayat ke x...cam-whoring moments mesti ada...


Magnificent view of the castle from Mary's bridge...


Pic time berbackground-kan Neuschwanstein castle...



 View of the Nature from the bridge...cantik kannnn..

From Mary's bridge, if you look down, you would get a beautiful view of the waterfall...

This is how the fountain would look from below...

I wasn't down here...Those who didn't enter the castle went down while waiting for our castle tour to finish..Huhu..next time nak mandi manda terus..Credits to Ainul for the pics.


On the way to the castle, we get to see this amazing view...oh..speechless terus..
Imagine what kind of view the wind glider would experience....kalau I pon dah speechless, dia ternganga terus..

Group pic during the journey to the castle

It was like a fairy tale journey walking towards the castle...banyak sangat bunyi awww, wow,wowo,howoe...

The outside view of the castle upclose..

The route before entering the castle

While waiting for our turn to go in, we had fun chatting and taking pictures...Meriah sangat...

Public photograph of the interior of the castle is prohibited.I got these pictures from Wikipedia. You get to see the dining room, study room, bedroom, drawing room and the Hall of the Singers.

At the balcony of the castle...

Model of the Neuschwanstein castle...

I wish I could visit Neuschwanstein Castle in all four different seasons.See how lovely the views of the castle in different season.Simply breathtaking!!!


Spring

Summer

 Autumn

 Winter
 I hope you guys enjoy reading the post.Till the next post.
Tschüss und mach's gut!!!

13 comments:

your favourite jane said...

is this the castle that in the Cadbury Black Forest pack? LOL it's sooooo wonderful and amazing castle, just like in the fairytales :D

Fie Omar said...

best nye!!!~

Nabil Aizat Abdul Rahman said...

to A FLYING UNICORN:
Really? x perasan ada castle..kan..i was erally mesmerized when I first saw the castle...

to Fie Omar:
Memang best sangat..hee

Pja Ismail said...

CANTIK! Tengok gambar pun rasa excited, kalau berdiri kat sana tak tahu rasa apa.

wafa azman said...

bestnyee!! cantik sgt!! ;D

Nabil Aizat Abdul Rahman said...

to pja:
Tu la..seriously sangat cantik tempat tu..sangat nak pergi lagi..

to wafa:
besttt

Primadona said...

Nabil its me Azizah.Guna member punya akaun coz malas nak log out.Btw its really mesmerizing.Nabil duduk German berapa lama?? wondering sebab hampir semua tempat kat germany Nabil dah jalankan.Its good to share with us here and m'sia.Happy blogging Nabil :)

sitiezahim said...

heheheh bes bes..entri pon complete citer semua..:D
p/s: cam masa winter menarik kan?

Nabil Aizat Abdul Rahman said...

to azizah:
Dah berapa lama duduk sini ke? dah setahun lebey.Banyak lagi tempat menarik x gi lagi..Berlin, Munich, Trier...insyaallah one day..

To Kak Siti:
Hehe..semangat kan cerita semua..tu la ingat next time nak gi time winter plak.

sully86 said...

princess alex: ehhhh where are u princess!!!!!

Primadona said...

oh i see..bolehlah save untuk honeymoon if nabil cakap one daykan.teehee

La Petite Cherie ♡ said...

Looks like a Disney fairytale castle!!

Nabil Aizat Abdul Rahman said...

to sully:
Haha..cari princess ke? dah jumpa blum?

to Miss Dolce and Gabbana:
Yeah2...u should..sangat romantic tempat ni.

la petite cherie:
Disney got their inspiration from this castle la...mesti x baca tengok gambar je ni..