Today was my most anticipated day of the entire trip, the Neuschwanstein castle!! Today by far offered the most gorgeous photos of the entire trip, with a huge hike up the mountain and to the top of the castle.

I slept in today until 8:00 and had my second to last Bavarian-style breakfast in the hotel dining room. To be honest, I’m excited to eat some real eggs instead of the plastic eggs offered in the hotel breakfast – it’s kind of yucky, but I need protein. We set off this morning southwest on the bus and arrived around an hour and a half later at the lake in front of the castle. Before heading off, professor Feick gave a bit of a history lesson about the castle and King Ludwig, who commanded the construction of Neuschwanstein, as well as 2 other castles in the mid-19th century. I learned that he was a passive yet imaginative king, leaning off from ruling the country and giving more power to the government. As a young king taking power when he was only 19 years old, for most of his life he had stayed outside of Munich and spent a large amount of time reading about some of his favorite European fairy tales from the old ages. I found it fascinating how distant he was from ruling the country, and the fact he spent most of his life constructing these large money-sinks that each castle ended up being.

Inside the castle, only 9 rooms were ever finished by the king, so the tour was short and sweet. After taking some pretty cool pictures from the top with a view for miles, we travelled by bus to Fussen. While in town, we had some free time to spend, so the guys ended up spending our last trip eating at an authentic German restaurant. We reflected on the past two weeks, and made some plans for Salzburg on Thursday.

I really enjoyed the last planned day of the trip, and spending time with the rest of the kids on the program. Tomorrow is presentation day, and we are all pretty nervous. Here goes nothing! Auf Wiedersehen blog!