Today we had a another tour with Mikes Bike Tours- this one into Bavaria. They actually call it Bus Bavaria since some of the time is spent on coaches going out to the Bavarian Mountains. It is such an awesome way to see the area!! I was definitely regretting the late night at the Hofbrauhaus though, waking up in the morning was quite rough! On the way to meet the coach we got a few shots at the Marienplatz. It worked out great since no one in town was up that early in a place usually packed with people making photo-taking difficult!
Next it was off to Bavaria. The biggest attraction to Bavaria is King Ludwig's Neuschwanstein Castle (pronounced Noi-Schwan-stein), one of the most famous castles in the world. It is the inspiration behind Disney's castle, and you have certainly seen photos of it before. We could not have been luckier with weather! There are not many days without heavy clouds in the Bavarian Alps, so we were feeling pretty blessed with blue skies and amazing views of the castle!! When we arrived, we got our bikes and had 2-3 hours of biking around the area first. We got to see the gorgeous Swan Lake, the beautiful river, the picturesque Alps, and got lots of views of both castles (both King Ludwig's) in the area. Here are a couple pics from that stent of the day:
After the bike tour part, we had lunch, and then got to watch Brad's magic show. Brad was our tour guide who has been doing this tour for 15 years. What you wouldn't expect from Brad is that he actually went to the German School for Magic, won 2nd place at the world magic competition, and is ridiculously good at card tricks. I could never explain, and certainly not show you how good they were because I have no idea how he was doing what he was doing!! Great entertainment! Anyways, so after lunch we had time to go do the Alpine Slide before hiking up to tour the castle. The Alpine Slide is similar to bobsledding, but sitting on a luge type cart. It was soooo much fun! Kyle had a bit of an accident on it though while flying around a corner.... He has an ugly burn on his arm to go along with it. It's a good thing he had the GoPro on- we can forever laugh at the wipeout now! ;). The footage is all really cool actually.
So after the Luge it was time to make the trek up the hill to the castle. He views from the bridge on the way up were impeccable!!! The castle is just stunning! I didn't get photos inside because you are not allowed to take them. Don't be upset though.... Because of the Kings insistence on detail, only around 15 of the rooms were completed by the time he died, and the others never finished. Therefore the tour of the inside is quite short.
After the tour, we hoped back on the coach and headed back for Munich. We arrived back in town at 8 PM and the town was out and about sporting their German pride for the World Cup game vs Ghana that was getting ready to begin. Being in Europe during the World Cup has been a pretty cool thing, I must say. Kyle had gotten in touch with a friend named Nikolas, who invited us to come watch the game a bar where they had a reserved table. Kyle met Nikolas while he was working at the business building in college and Nikolas was in the masters program getting his MBA. We had not seen him since he was in Houston many years ago. We met him at a big Greek bar (he is Greek), and it was such a treat! We got to try all kinds of neat Greek foods, all while watching & cheering on Germany from a large patio loud with fans! Thank you for a fun night, Nik!
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