Schwangau, Germany

We started today's drive around 7.30 AM as our target was to reach Neuschwanstein castle in Southern Germany in the afternoon. Well, things didn't go quite as planned.. We got stuck in huge traffic jams in three different occasions and imagine; the last one was only 6 km long, but it took us 1 h 20 min. Unbearable.. When we left the hotel, we called the American Express travel agency for help with arranging us the tickets to the castle. They told us there was already a 4-hour queue to the castle and we decided to try another choice they offered, a cable car in the mountains of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Unfortunately we were too much delayed by the traffic and finally had to skip all fun activities.

When we got totally fed up with the traffic jam, we chose an "avoid highways" -route on the GPS. A moment later we found ourselves on a 1-lane road with not a single soul to be seen anywhere in the middle of a forest. Fascinating or just a bit scary..?! 

Finally here in Schwangau we are really close to the Alps. The scenery is amazing. We took a little walk towards the outskirts of the town before dinner and saw the beautiful castle. Take a look:

Just aches to look at it, doesn't it? Imagine living up there, in the castle, feeling like being on top of the world! There's nothing like the mountains, I simply adore them. I never get tired of this kind of a view. 

Our hotel is right in the middle of the town, called Hotel Schwanstein. Our room is simple but roomy enough and the hotel personnel is warm and thoughtful. One can easily feel like home here. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant and we all enjoyed it; the portions were huge and there was so many options to choose from, and they had a nice kids' menu too. We again chose a specialty dish of the hotel, but this time the food was really lovely. A perfect ending for a loooong day. 

Here's the hotel and our room on the 2nd floor, on the right: 

The dinner was yummy, kinda like home-cooked:

Now it's the time to crash, can't stay awake for one more moment. Tomorrow we'll get up early again and head to Florence!