Sneak peak at Neuschwanstein!

Today, we checked out of The Cube and headed out of Switzerland, through Lichtenstein and to Pinswang, Austria.  I've been especially looking forward to this part of the trip as we hope to tour mad King Ludwig's castle tomorrow.  However, we arrived at our wonderful hotel early enough that, according to Rick Steve's guide, we should be able to walk to view the two castles!

The guide book says that the castles are a little over an hour walking from our hotel and 30 minutes by bike.  Conveniently our hotel rents mountain bikes!  The word 'mountain' in front of the word bike should have been my first clue!  Neither Gordy nor I have ridden a bike in over 10 years!  Somehow the Wii Fit did not prepare us well, no offense to Nintendo.

So off we went....can you just say LOTS of up hill trails.  I only got half use out of my bike -- the downhill part.  I had to push the bike up the hills -- I prefer to remember it as the bike was too heavy for my delicate constitution!  It's my story, and I'm sticking to it.  The guide book said biking would take 30 minutes and walking over an hour -- we split the difference, it took us 45 minutes each way.

It was a cool trip, now that I'm back and have survived. You actually cross into Germany on the bike trail.  The guard station is not staffed.  But just to prove that we were there and had bikes....

And we finally got a glimpse!

Can't wait until tomorrow!  And this time, we'll drive over!