Disney Castle in Bavarian Alps

I was first introduced to this magnificent castle through Samantha Brown's travel channel 'Passport to Europe' back when I was in Junior High. I was so mesmerised by it's beauty and the fact that Neuschwanstein schloss (read: Noi-swan-stain slos) is the inspiration of Disney castle I often saw in movies. This castle keep following me through my undergrad years as a big poster inside a Student Lounge. I made up my mind that it will be the first castle I'm planning to visit if I ever got the chance to travel around Europe, and it did happened.

The easiest way to reach Neuschwanstein schloss is by taking a train from München Hauptbanhof, check out the fares and time table from bahn.de put Füssen in your destination column since it's the closest train station to the castle. The journey took roughly 2 hours and cost around €20 one way.

Psst, insider tips! There is cheaper option for the train ticket, instead of buying normal train ticket, you can buy Bayern-Ticket which cost €28 and can be use in all regional train within Bavaria, regional train usually the one in red while white train is the intercity rail and express train, and the best part is the ticket can be used up to 5 PEOPLE, yep you don't get me wrong, you can travel with 4 of your friends means each person only pays less than €5 for the return trip, how cool is that? The catch is the ticket only valid after 9 a.m. from Monday to Friday but valid all day during weekend. You're welcome!

From Füssen station, took a bus 73 to Steingaden / Garmisch-Partenkirchen or bus 78 to Schwangau and stop at Hohenschwangau/Alpseestraße which located close to the ticket and information office, if you following my advise and buy Bayern-ticket, this bus ride is included in your ticket.  It is advisable to come in the morning because the ticket easily sold out especially during holiday season, it's more tricky if you can't speak German due to limited English tour per day, the ticket cost €12 which included entrance ticket to the castle and 35 minutes guided tour with an experienced guide which will tell you the story of the castle it self. One downside of this is : no picture permitted inside the castle. Argh, now I'm frustrated!!

Long queue in front of ticket office

There are 2 options to get the to castle from the ticket office, you can hike the mountain through a hiking path which will took around 40 mins to 1 hour but with magnificent view, or you can be lazy like me and took a bus instead. The bust stop located next to the biergarten and costed €3 for both ways. It's a 15-20 minutes bus trip on the edge of a cliff with magnificent view. I really recommended took the bus around an hour before your intended tour, and go the Marianne Brücken to get the first glimpse of this beautiful castle.

It looks so gorgeous!!

After taking lots and lots of picture, I went to the castle by foot. It's another 5 to 10 minutes walk before you find you self in front of the castle gate. But there's another view point when I walk to the castle I can see the beautiful Bavarian alps with snowy mountains and beautiful lake. It just took my breath away! Now I know why King Ludwig II insist on making his palace here, can I be your neighbour, please?

Just go through the gate and you'll see several gate with number on them, you will be assign to specified gate based on your tour number. Unexpectedly the tour was not as entertaining as the view from the outside, it still amazing and worth the visit though. But I just couldn't stop drooling looking over the alps view from the castle window. The tour visit several rooms including king bed chamber, king toilet (which already use a flush toilet, a very advance technology at that time), kitchen, great hall and several other rooms. At the end of the tour I went to the toilet to get a drink, you may say eewwhhh but this is very normal in Germany, and I tasted the most refreshed toilet water I've ever drink, I think it's taste even better than normal bottle water!

Finished my tour and still got time to spare before heading back to München, why not grab a traditional beer König Luwig Dunkel Beer while enjoying the scenery?

For further information regarding Neuschwanstein Schloss, you could visit their official website below:

http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/tourist/index.htm

Why I love Airbnb

Let's talk accommodation, just because you simply cannot sleep under a bridge during your trip, right? Well, I've sleep in the airport, bus station and train station several times, that wasn't too bad either. Let me introduce my most favourite word for accommodation : Airbnb.

Airbnb offer locals who have spare rooms to rent their room to fellow traveller at a cheap price. I think it's really brilliant considering how high hotel or hostel rate in a famous city like London or Rome. You can open airbnb through their website at airbnb.com for your convenience, you can also download airbnb application in Apple store and Google play store.

A few things need to considered when using airbnb:

1. It's not a hotel reception, they are just locals with spare room to rent. Don't expect lavish welcoming party during your arrival.
2. Introduce your self in the initial email, as I said in the first point, it's not a hotel reception, you need to introduce your self, where do you come from, how long you intended to stay at their house, why you want to stay at their place, things like that. 
3. Be nice, I knew some people want privacy but it will be considerate if you talk and mingle with your host for a bit, if you're staying with them, during your stay.
4. You can get rejected, yes no one aware of this, but you can be rejected. You will stay at someone's place and if he or she doesn't like you or your profile, they can simply reject your booking.

So compare to booking a hotel or hostel, using airbnb is a little bit need more effort, which I personally think really worth it.

There are several features which I think really useful when I use airbnb:

1. Simply put your destination and date, it will give huge range of accommodation.
2. There are 3 room types to choose, an entire home for a real privacy, private room means you will get your own bedroom but share other facilities or a shared bedroom.
3. Thing I really like the most is how I can set my price range to match my budget. The price will be per room for a night, usually for 2 person or for how many person you put in the guest column.
4. There will be a map on your right hand side, showing the location of the room, it really comes in handy when choosing the right location for your accommodation. I always tend to choose a room centrally located or at least very near to a public transport.
5. When you see a lighting symbol, it means that you can book the room right away without need to  mail back and forth with your host, love this symbol!
6. Need more time to think? Just click heart symbol and the room will be added into your wish list which you can access any time.

Insider tips and why I love using airbnb:

• They usually include fully equipped kitchen, really convenient to cook and lower your budget, best bet is the kitchen already have main amenities like salt, sugar, oil, etc which the host are happy to share with you. Just ensure the kitchen is tidy after using it.
• Getting a key to your room can be really easy or it can be really tricky. The host will give you detail direction to their house once they accepted your request, some of them already have special place where you can take the key anytime you want but some places you need to arrange a meeting with the host to take the key from them and let them show you around the house.
• So far I've experienced 2 types of airbnb: the one where the house have several rooms and they all rented out to guest, so you don't meet the host but usually this type is fairly easy to check in and check out. The second one is when you really living with a local, they live under the same roof with you, you might need to take the key directly from them, but they usually very nice and want to share their knowledge about the city the lived in or just have nice chat.
• When searching an accommodation make sure to read the house description, what kind of facilities they offer and what's really important for you to have during your stay, it's free wifi for me, check the location from the map to ensure you choose the right neighbourhood, and read past guest review. Review usually is the most honest one, so you can trust them if someone say that the house located in shady place or if the hot water is not running, things like that which you will not find in the description. It may take more effort, but trust me it will be worth it.
• After your stay it will be very polite to leave review for your host, how you feel about staying at their place. On the other hand, the host can also leave a review for you, how happy or not happy they are having you in their house. More review for the host means more likely to get more guests coming to their home, having more review means you will get better chances to get accepted when you requested a place to stay on your next trip.

Grab your bag, and explore the world!