Day 27 - Garmisch- Partenkirchen

Awoke to the sound of church bells again this morning and started to get ready to leave Rothenburg.  We have had a great time here full of great memories, but it is time to move onto the next place.  Before we left, the boys had to have one more schneeball.  Icing sugar for Daniel and Vanilla for Joshua.  We jumped into the car and headed towards our next destination, Garmisch-Partenkirchen.  

On the way to Garmisch, we stopped in at a small town called Ottobeuren.  There is an abbey and church here which is over 300 years old. The inside of the church is very beautiful with paintings all over the walls and roof.   The boys were grossed out by some of the churches other "decorations"  On display are the skeletons of 4 German Saints, covered in lace and displayed in Glass cases. Hmm.... not sure about that!

After Ottobeuren, we headed further down the Motorway to Hohenschwangau, the location of Trudie's castle, better known as Neuschwanstein.  We arrived at 2.00pm and were amazed to see cars and people everywhere.  We knew that Neuschwanstein is the most popular tourist attraction in Germany, but were still amazed to see crowds everywhere.  We finally found a park and lined up to get tickets. 30 minutes later, when we finally reached the ticket window we were told that the next English speaking tour was at 6:10pm. This was a bit too late for us as we still needed to drive to Garmisch to check into our accommodation, so we had to settle for booking tickets for tomorrow.  After a Wurst and Brotchen for lunch, we looked around the town for a while before heading towards Garmisch.  

As we headed south, the scenery became more spectacular.  The mountains were getting larger and closer, everything was looking so beautiful.  We crossed into Austria and drove past the Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany, 2962m high.  Its actually on the German/Austrian border.  We stopped at the bottom of the mountain on the Austrian side and looked at the chair lift (Gondola) that runs up to the top of the mountain.  Pretty steep, pretty high and pretty long.  Hmm, maybe not today!

We drove on until we reached Garmisch.  All the houses are very Bavarian with shutters on the windows, flowers in flowerboxes and painting on the walls.  Beautiful.  We checked into our accommodation which is also a very nice place, just a short walk from the centre of town and headed off to get some dinner.  Early start tomorrow, we're off to see Schloss Neuschwanstein!