This is the Alpsee lake from which we could look up and see the castles. We got a cloudy, rainy, chilly day for our trip but you can see how beautiful the scenery is anyhow.

 

This is Hohenschwangau. It was the childhood home of King Ludwig II, the crazy king of Bavaria who built Neuschwanstein as well as a couple other castles.

 

And here are two views of Neushwanstein itself. It was quite the tourist trap but impressive nonetheless. Lugwig built it based on the operas of Wagner and the whole thing feels like a fairy tale castle. In fact, Disney's Cinderella castle is based off of it. However, Ludwig's castle-building nearly bankrupted Germany and this castle was never finished on the inside. In the end he was pronounced insane and unfit to rule by a group of doctors who had never even seen him (although to be fair to them, he was a pretty strange guy). The next day he drowned in shallow water along with his own doctor and their deaths were pronounced to be suicide.