Crystalised

Trip Start Nov 26, 2009

Trip End Dec 22, 2009

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of Austria Innsbruck, Austrian Alps, Austria
Tuesday, December 8, 2009

We began the day knowing that we wouldn't be going into Venice until the next day anyway, with our hotel being outside the city itself. Consequently, we were going to make a big day of our coach trip! We packed our bags and left Munich quite early in the morning, with our first destination being Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the inspiration for the Disney Castle, and is perched on the top of a hill, creating a stunning sight on the drive in. As we arrived, we saw a beautiful lake in front of us, and a long, winding road to our left which was what we had to travel up to make it to the castle. The options to reach the top were by foot, shuttle bus or horse and carriage... us die-hards did it all by foot! We were slightly exhausted at the top of the hill but that did not matter as we still had to wait a fair amount of time before we were admitted into the castle. At this point, we took plenty of photos and it started to snow (or there was frozen rain), causing Dean to go absolutely mental

Neuschwanstein Castle

!

After a while, we were admitted into the castle, but what a disappointment that was. For all the amazing external views of the castle, the interior wasn't nearly as striking. It was extravagant and sensational, but we weren't allowed to take photos, and it all lacked a bit of meaning. Not helping was the flamboyant, slightly androgynous stylings of our tour guide named Benjamin Kast, a Bavarian who stated "I work for the castle, I live for the castle," with an accent a little like Goldmember from the third Austin Powers film. He was the kind of creepy tour guide you hear about... I'm glad we had safety in numbers. Upon exiting, we walked down the hill, ate some donut ball kind of thing and headed back onto the bus with Innsbruck to come!

This stint of the bus drive was possibly the most exciting of the tour in terms of scenery. The Austrian Alps were stunning, leading us to take a ridiculous amount of photos that, when looked back upon, were all of just mountains and snow. But what a sight! We then reached Innsbruck and enjoyed a trip into the Swarovski store, which was fitting considering the company originated in the Tyrol region of Austria, where Innsbruck is located. The rest of our hour-long lunch stop in Innsbruck revolved around food - a sumptuous chicken schnitzel and frites, a margarita pizza shared between five and the most amazing chocolate waffle on a stick

Innsbruck

. Everything was delicious, that was the beauty of the Christmas market right underneath Innsbruck's bell tower.

We headed back to the bus with a bit of a snowball fight, the first one we had on tour. Matheesha got hit in the arse by a snowball thrown by me, and for good measure... well, he got nothing on me. We'd had a wonderful day so far, but little did we know, Innsbruck was far closer to our previous destination, Munich, than it was to our next destination, Venice. Driving through as opposed to around the Alps costs a lot of time (although provides wonderful scenery), whilst the most unbelievable traffic jams of all time can occur on Italian motorways!

Slideshow