Cyrus's Wonderful Guest Entry!

Cyru's Guest Blog Entry

Arrived town 1:00pm, late for picking up tickets, walked up the castle road through woods and many, many tourists. Woods thin but dark, lots of trees and mountain streams. At the base of the castle was a Rathaus, souvenirs and a quarkbalchens stand. Great view of bavarian countryside, lakes and red-roofed buildings far in the distance along with lakes and rolling hills. Behind the castle between the fog and low clouds we could see the alps. Very jagged, steep, impressive. They were so tall they were obscured by the clouds. Castle built on lower crest of foothills, also very impressive. Facade of white walls and rockwork on basically the edge of a cliff. Tour through castle very restricted, full of Russian tourists, very easy to spot them with their total lack of other languages and constant serious, angry faces and big fur coats. Inside very impressive, apparently the castle was build later than I though (mid-19th century), but furnishings inside well preserved and interesting, murals of holy-grail, and other religious/mythological tales/imagery. Lots of very ornate woodwork as well. Did not enjoy tour very much, was rushed through everything with awful walkie-talkies we had to listen to, wanted to take my time and actually get a good look at the stuff inside, did not get to climb to top of tower either. Cave inside the castle was very cool, even had colored lights. It was inspired by tales of the grail, did think of Monty Python, flanked by balconies overlooking fields and country below.

After tour decided to hop fence and walk to a bridge spanning the large chasm running alongside the castle. Technically was closed but lots of tourists were walking there anyway. More views of countryside, lakes, the lower castle (hoschwenstein?), and mountains in distance. Reached bridge, terrifying thin white steel arch crossed with wooden planks about 300 ft above rocky stream below. Started to rain a little bit. Crossed bridge and decided to start climbing trail up the mountainside behind castle. Very slippery, very steep. Path at times very close to edge, very steep drop to bottom of gorge below. Through fog could see the castle and village lit up through fog. Climbed over a spot in the fencing and climbed all the way up into the fog/clouds, saw frost and snow on trees and path, could no longer see castle or ground below, path covered with snow and bordered by endless and bottomless mist. Began to get dark. Decided to turn back although we did not get to the very end of trail. Scurried down the mountain, dangerous but fun. We were able to run along some of the path back towards the bridge. Also took a piss off the edge of the cliff. It was very dark by the time we reached the base of the castle, ate some delicious quarkbalchens from stand mentioned earlier, not sure what they were made of, fried something with sugar, unhealthy but delicious and not too sweet. (After further research, actually a fried tvorog pastry, which just makes it that much better)

Very cold on the way back home, bus took about 45 minutes to finally take us to the train, then more waiting, then a train change, then gummi-bears and more waiting. Got to eat lots of chicken at the Hauptbahnhoff when we did finally get back though, вскусно (yummy).