The weather changed drastically today—rainy, cold, and “wishing I had brought warmer clothes” type of weather. It was a travel day and it seemed we spent many hours on the bus going from Lucerne to Munich. Without stopping, it should have taken us about 4-1/2 hours. The rain, however, made it possible for us to see many waterfalls, which reminded me of when it rains when driving over the Pali Highway in Honolulu. What made our trip even longer was that there was some kind of construction in a tunnel which delayed us at least 45 minutes. And we didn’t move for quite a while—our bus driver even turned off the engine and went out and had a cigarette.

Along the way, we stopped in the principality of Liechtenstein where I got my passport stamped for a price of 3 Swiss Francs which was a good way to spend my last Swiss coins. Bill Potter and I also indulged in a strawberry dessert.

We finally made it to Neuschwanstein Castle by mid-afternoon. This is the castle which inspired Walt Disney to build the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland. It was built by Ludwig II as a retreat and also as a tribute to the composer Richard Wagner. Many of the rooms are inspired by scenes in Wagner operas. Before we rode some very, very crowded local buses to the top, we stopped to have a sausage roll, something I was hoping to eat on my trip to Germany. It was delicious except that we had to eat standing up since all the outside tables and chairs were wet from the rain.

After disembarking the local buses, we had to climb a rather steep hillside to get to a bridge viewing point. The bridge, in my opinion, was rather rickety—I could feel the boards beneath us bending and stretching, and with about 75-100 people on the bridge at the same time, it seemed rather dangerous. But Bill, who had just been here in this exact location in May, assured me that it was safe. Hah! The view from the bridge, however, was spectacular and thank goodness, it had stopped raining.

We did not go inside, and on Bill’s visit in May, he was told that no photos were allowed in the interior anyway.

We finally arrived at the Ratskellar, a restaurant underneath the city hall, for a typical Bavarian dinner of beef Sauerbraten with Burgundy sauce, spaetzle-pasta and red cabbage. Dessert was cinnamon apple cake with vanilla ice cream. It was all yummy but too much food, and I left my plate half-eaten.