German Alps and Fairy Tale Castles

I was looking through my posts and noticed that this one was still listed as a draft, so I'm going to remedy that now!  I definitely would be doing the trip an injustice if I forgot to include one of the highlights of our trip to Europe.  We made Garmisch-Partenkirchen our base camp in the German Alps and enjoyed our day trip to visit the castles of "Mad King Ludwig."  

Photos from our ride through the mountains.  The scenery was stunning, but was we couldn't get over was the almost unreal blue of the water.  I've never seen such clear, light blue water.

Hohenschwangau...Ludwig's father's castle.  We loved the terrace garden here, and it seemed to be the most livable of the castles we visited.

Neuschwanstein...the famous fairy tale castle!  Ludwig ran out of money while building this, and you could see all of his cost-cutting measures inside.  He had painted on tapestries (including painted on rods to "hold" them up) and used large glass "jewels" in place of the real deal.  The strangest thing, though, was the cave he had installed off the living room...complete with stalactites and stalagmites.

Linderhof...Ludwig's little castle.  It was really out in the middle of nowhere, but I loved the formal gardens, and the castle was meant to look like a mini Versailles.  Oh, and it had a grotto with a stage where he could watch private concerts from the comfort of his own little boat.

There, now I am officially officially done with blogging about our trip!  Thanks for being patient with the multitude of posts about Europe!