Parents' visit - Neuschwanstein, Furtwangen, and more castle hunting

After Munich, I took my parents to Neuschwanstein Castle.  It was a little touristy, but truly worth the visit!

There he stands, in front of the Disney logo inspiration...

The key reason Neuschwanstein is so beautiful is because the parts that are complete are fully finished, designed by the Ludwig II to appear as much as possible to the Renaissance Era.  The catch is that he embellished heavily so it is really more of a Romantic Era setup, but it is still absolutely incredible to see in its present state.  Don't fool yourself though, he bankrupted himself simply finishing the shell of the castle and only one third of the interior.

 We then headed to Furtwangen.  Here is the, almost ski-resort style, hotel we stayed at.  As you can see here, there is almost 2 feet of snow and the ground with no signs of melting.  I kid you not, about a 30 minute drive north, there was no snow at all.

 

For dessert there, I ordered two chocolate ice cream scoops with a "splash" of sherry.  I guess here, a "splash" is actually quarter of a liter.  Needless to say, what is pictured is what I could not finish.

Next, we visited the clock museum.  I thought it was way cool!  We also saw the Triberg waterfalls and then headed home.

This is a mechanized model of Copernicus' theory of planets and their motion.  Included are the Sun and all of the planets from Mercury to Saturn including all visible moons at the time (4 on Jupiter and more on Saturn).

 

This mechanical clock went a step further.  Its features include: star locations for the north and south hemispheres, time, date (day, month, and year), day of the week, planetary locations in the sky, zodiac signs, moon phases, moon location, and I'm pretty sure there was more.  Built in the late 20th century.

Who needs metal?  These old clocks were made almost completely out of wood including wood gears, wood axles, and in some cases, wood noise makers for the quarters of the hour.

Triberg waterfalls.

The last full day my parents were here, my dad and I did some castle hunting.  My dad and I are kinda into castles, at least in terms of their architecture and function.  Needless to say, I have tons of pictures of the castles we saw, but for the sake of brevity I will stick to the main pictures.

Altenbaumburg.  Surprisingly large and in decent condition for being ruins.  We thought the reconstructed bridge was a nice touch.  We thought a lot about what it would look like if restored.

The further north we got, the hazier it got.  This was immediately outside of Koblenz .The Rhine River, a great river to tour for German castles.  I can't remember the name of the castle on the right, but we were unable to easily access it due to construction on the main road.  The tower on the left is part of what we speculate was the old city walls.  Much of present day Koblenz is built right into its old city walls.

A very bad angle of Marksburg.  Ironically, I was trying to avoid this castle because J and I tried to tour this castle earlier only to find it strangely closed.  This time, it actually was open, we just made the last tour in time, and enjoy every minute of it.  This castle apparently is the only castle in Germany that was never sacked and was not damaged during World War II.  It is still lived in, presently by the castle tour director, and is almost fully furnished.  It is also still being actively maintained. 

The next day, J and I took my parents to their last castle on their trip, Hohenecken.  Etsy had a blast running around.

I hope they had a good trip.  Hopefully, they will visit one more time before we ourselves have to bail out.