Husband and I moved to Munich in January and since then we've been slowly exploring this city and the area around it. We've been to little medieval towns with a lot of charm, to beautiful lakes, to beer festivals and to huge markets and flea markets. So I've decided to share our little adventures with you all.

I'm sure you've heard about Neuschswanstein Schloss, or at least, you've seen it in pictures. It's probably so famous because it served as inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle. This makes it one of the most visited attractions in the whole Germany, with more than 1,3 million people visiting every year, especially in summer. We visited it on August, and I can tell you that it was packed with tourists. But both the castle and its surroundings are stunning, so totally worth a visit.

Neuschwanstein Castle is located in the village of Hohenschwangau, about two hours away from Munich. What you probably don't know is that in this village there's another castle called Hohenschwangau. It was King Ludwig II of Bavaria's childhood residence and apparently he fell in love with the area, especially the waterfalls, and because he was quite reclusive, he decided to build himself a personal refuge on the mountains. He also built himself a replica of the Palace of Versailles, you can read about it here.

When you arrive at the village of Hohenschwangau, you can already see both castles, Hohenschwangau is just a 5 minute walk up the hill and Neuschwanstein is up the mountain. There's a bus that takes you up there but it's quite an easy hike and most people, us included, opt for walking.

Also, in the village there's a gorgeous lake where you can swim if it's warm enough or take a little paddle boat. Before going to the castles, and if you want to get inside, you need to go to the ticket office in the village. When we were there, we arrived at around 11 am and they were selling tickets for 6pm already. So we decided to just have an outdoors day and come back in winter when there're less people and discover the interior then. 

So after having a walk around Hohenschwangau Castle and its gardens, we started walking towards Neuschwanstein. It takes around 40 minutes to get there but as I said, it's not a challenging walk at all. Another option is going up with a horse and carriage ride. This seemed to be the preferred option for children and it looked quite fun. I guess that's how Ludwig himself must have done it.

As soon as you get to the top, the views are amazing. Not only of the castle itself but of the landscape, with two huge lakes on the other side of the mountain. I must have taken a hundred pictures. Without a ticket to go inside, you can still get into the castle and see the patio. Which is spectacular, but now I'm really curious to see how opulent and elegant it must be inside. 

Husband and I moved to Munich in January and since then we've been slowly exploring this city and the area around it. We've been to little medieval towns with a lot of charm, to beautiful lakes, to beer festivals and to huge markets and flea markets. So I've decided to share our little adventures with you all.

The Chiemsee is a beautiful lake on the south east of Munich. It took us about an hour by car to get there, but it's easily accessible by train too. Plus, we saw that for the last stretch of the train line to get to Prien am Chiemsee, they use a really old steam train, so this would make for a real fun day trip from Munich if you are visiting.

In the lake there are two islands that you can visit by boat from many towns around the lake. So after having a stroll around the lake in Prien, we took a boat. It first takes you to the bigger island, Herreninsel (island of the men). There, you can get off and explore this island. As you can imagine, it has a brewery, a couple of restaurants and a biergarten but the main attraction is Herrenchiemsee, a palace built by kink Ludwig II in 1878. The curious thing is that the palace is a replica of the Palace of Versailles and even if the king died before it was completed, you can now visit it and enjoy this little piece of France in Bavaria.

Husband and I moved to Munich in January and since then we've been slowly exploring this city and the area around it. We've been to little medieval towns with a lot of charm, to beautiful lakes, to beer festivals and to huge markets and flea markets. So I've decided to share our little adventures with you all.

Ulm is a small town situated on the River Danube. It belongs to the state of Baden-Württemberg and it took a bit more than one hour and a half to get there from Munich. Apparently, Ulm is known for having the church with the tallest steeple in the world (161.53 m or 529.95 ft) and as the birthplace of Albert Einstein. 

We actually didn't know these facts before visiting so when we arrived, we decided to climb to the top of the cathedral (Ulmer Münster) to see the views and get an idea how the town was arranged. We started going up the stairs... and going up... and up... and up... I kid you not, there are 768 steps to get to the top. I repeat, 768. Have you ever climbed 768 steps (as in really high and steep Medieval steps)? I wanted to give up several times but we did manage to get to the top at the end. Yay! And the views were impressing, I even felt a bit dizzy up there as there was not much room. 

Husband and I moved to Munich in January and since then we've been slowly exploring this city and the area around it. We've been to little medieval towns with a lot of charm, to beautiful lakes, to beer festivals and to huge markets and flea markets. So I've decided to share our little adventures with you all.

Regensburg is a Bavarian city on the Danube River one hour north of Munich. It is known for its well-preserved medieval old town and for its Stone Bridge, dating from the 12th century. When we visited it though the bridge was undergoing repairs so we couldn't really see it but do not worry. The city has much else to offer. 

When we got there, we decided to take a boat trip around on the Danube to get a feel of the town. The trip took 45 minutes and we were told many historical facts about this town. They are really proud to have the oldest sausage kitchen of the country (Historische Wurstkuche), which has been selling its traditional sausages for over 500 years! 

Husband and I moved to Munich in January and since then we've been slowly exploring this city and the area around it. We've been to little medieval towns with a lot of charm, to beautiful lakes, to beer festivals and to huge markets and flea markets. So I've decided to share our little adventures with you all.