Thursday, August 1

Today's goal was to tour the Neuschwanstein castle, which inspired Walt Disney's theme parks. Dan had already reserved our English language tour time so that we would not have to wait in what turned out to be an incredibly long line to buy tickets. After a lovely drive through the countryside, we arrive and Dan picks up our tickets. Then we head up the hill for about a 20 minute walk. Some people take a mini-bus and some take a horse-drawn cart, but we hoof it under our own foot power. Its a warm day, but the paved path is mostly under the trees, so not too bad.

Our tickets are for a timed tour and we wait for about 30 minutes before the electronic board shows its time to enter through the turnstile. This is a major tourist attraction, so there are people from everywhere, all over the place. Our guide is short but speaks clearly and distinctly and shows us the throne room, the royal bedroom, reception halls , servants quarters, the kitchen and pantry - 15 rooms in all. This castle was conceived and started by "mad" King Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1869 and finished in 1886. The king was a true romantic and a worshipper of composer Richard Wagner. All of the finished formal rooms' walls are completely covered with painted murals inspired by myths and stories that also become Wagner operas. The king only occupied the castle for 172 days. In 1886, he was declared unfit to rule and two days later he was found drown in the lake. Did he die as the result of a murder or an accident?

As we started to walk down the hill, we stopped for lunch at an outside cafe. Then it was walking down the hill in about half the time it took to come up. Into the  car we start down the road toward Zurich, Switzerland. We didn't have a firm reservation for a bed. I had previously booked two rooms at a B&B just outside of Zurich but it had not been confirmed by airbnb.com. The temperature rises and Linda suggests we stop for a rest. We pull into Dornbirn and find the center platz of the town and sit down for a coffee at a cafe with free internet access. As I talk on the phone to seek the status of my reservation, Linda walks over to the information office like Rick Steves says we should and remarkably comes back with two rooms reserved. I eventually cancel my airbnb.com reservation and we drive up one of the mountains for 10 minutes. We are very lucky. Our two rooms look over to one of the Alps' ranges and the valley below. The view is so stunning, we just want to sit down and bask in it. The picture below does not do the view justice. We can see the town below us in the valley, and the mountains in Switzerland and across Lake Constance to Germany. There is even some snow on a few peaks. We eat dinner upstairs on the terrace with more remarkable views. Its also cooler. Life is good.

After dinner, we sit out on our side-by-side patios and talk and enjoy the view. Linda and Dan stay up longer than Sue and I and watch shooting stars. It also happens to be the Swiss Independence Day and they watch fireworks coming from towns in the valley. We are in Austria, but we can see Switzerland and Germany. We continue to congratulate ourselves on our good luck at finding this great place.