Germany 2018 - Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein Castle

After our last day full day in Butzbach and spending a quick morning in the town center for breakfast, we headed out towards our next stop Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein Castle. We stopped for a few hours near Frankfurt so go to a mall, then drove to Kempton where we stayed the night.

The next day we left Kempton and drove the the castles. We had pre-booked tour times for both of the castles to make sure we would be able to make it. I recommend doing this because the on site line up was about an hour long, we only waited for about 10 minutes.

While we waited for our tour time, we ate lunch, wandered around the town site looking at the lake and the birds, and we went out on the lake in a row boat. It was a pleasant few hours before we took a horse drawn carriage up to Hohenschwangau Castle.

After the carriage ride, we wandered around the Hohenschwangau castle grounds for the last half hour before our tour. The grounds had a beautiful garden and a great view of the surrounding area.

Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to take any pictures or videos of the interior of either castle, so you'll just have to go visit yourself to see it! After Hohenschwangau, we headed over and caught a bus to Neuschwanstein, which is a good ways up a hill. You do still have to walk the last kilometer or so along the base of the castle which makes the castle look pretty impressive.

After doing the Neuschwanstein tour and roaming around the courtyard and garden, Jaime, Roslyn and I decided to hike the trail behind the castle up the mountain side. Candance and Roslyn's Omi stayed behind, so we limited ourselves to a quick trip. We started from a bridge across the valley Neuschwanstein sits in and then went up the mountain side. The trail was well marked and easy to walk on, there was just a whole bunch of elevation gain!

After the hike, we unfortunately had to jump in the car and get going. Our next hotel was a few hours away so we ate at a local brewery before heading out. We did get some nice pictures of Neuschwanstein castle as we drove away though.

Where to Start, Where to Start

Roslyn and I have decided to complete the West Coast Trail next summer. Its a 75 km long 1508 m of elevation trail that's half way across the country from us. We're going to be showing a bunch of our planning here and occasionally on our youtube channel to help others plan their own long trips.

The first step to any backpacking trip is either deciding what time you have available to go backpacking or what trail you want to go backpacking on. Since Roslyn and I already know what trail we want to do all we have to do is figure out a time to do it! For local overnight or day trip trails this is pretty easy to do, and for longer local trails in the 3-5 day category is becomes a bit more difficult but still not too onerous. Unfortunately for us, the West Coast Trail is half a country away and from what we've read so far takes 6 to 8 days to complete.

Here's a list of what needs to be considered when selecting when to go:

1 - How long will the hike take?
2 - When will the weather permit the hike?
3 - What are travel arrangements like?
4 - What happens if you need to extend the time on trail?
5 - What happens if we don't get a trail permit on our ideal day?

Lets work through each of these one at a time.

1 - How long will the hike take?

The West Coast Trail is 75 km long with 1508 m of elevation gain according to AllTrails. While not mountain climbing, that's still a lot of height changes over that distance. From reading the reviews and talking to a co-worker that has done it, 6-7 days seems to be about average. Roslyn and I are going with 6 days, putting us at a mere 12.5 km per day of travel. That should give us plenty of time to look around, explore, and if something happens like a creek being impassable we will be able to make up the delay.

2 - When will the weather permit the hike?

Since its on the coast, the window of good weather if pretty wide, but we still want it to be warm out. We narrowed our window down to June, July, or August, as that was the time period with a temperature and rainfall amount we found acceptable.

3 - What are travel arrangements like?

We are going to be travelling to BC 3-4 days before our hike starts to visit with Roslyn's sisters. Because of this, we really only need to figure out 4-6 hours of travel to get to the trail head from their place. The only other consideration is that you need to do an orientation session at the trail head, which is only held twice a day. Since the 4-6 hours travel time means we will miss the morning orientation, and we don't want to start the hike a 3:30 we are going to have to arrive the day before we plan on starting the trail.

4 - What happens if we need to extend the time on the trail?

Due to the chance of injury or lots of rain, there is a possibility of having to stay on trail for an extra day or two.Roslyn and I are planning on staying with my dad for a few days after were done the trail, so we can eat into that. If you aren't planning on staying in the vicinity of the trail after you're done, you should give a day or two leeway on your final departure date. Missing planes or other expensive travel costs makes an injury or trail delay even more disappointing.

5 - What happens if we don't get a trail permit on our ideal day?

Given the above information, Roslyn and I picked an ideal start date. But because the passes for the trail are first come first served, we needed to pick a couple of secondary (and tertiary) dates. Since we were staying in the area both before and after our hike, we picked dates in that were right beside our ideal date so that it impacted our overall plans as little as possible.

If you can go through and answer those five questions you will be well on your way to planning a longer backpacking trip. The next steps are to actually figure out our travel itinerary and how were getting around, but before we can do that all of the start-end dates needed to be figured out.

If you have any questions about this, or anything else, let me know!

Germany 2018 - Butzbach day 3, Tour of the Rhine

On our last full day in Butzbach, we once again spend the morning hanging out with family for a time before Roslyn's great uncle Erich took us out on another day trip. This time we were headed to tour the banks of the Rhine river. 

Our first stop of the day was an old river castle, which had been converted into a public garden. We walked from the car down along the river before turning into the castle to look at the gardens. While we were there, a couple was taking wedding photos so we tried our best to stay out oft he way.

After the castle garden, we jumped back into the car and drove to Rudesheim am Rhein. In Rudesheim, we spent a few hours taking the gondola up to Niederwalddenkmal, and then walking around Drosselgasse. Niederwalddenkmal is a monument commemorating the unification of Germany, built in 1880s/1890s. Drosselgasse is a particularly narrow street lines with wine shops and restaurants.

After we were finishes in Rudesheim, we took a drive along the Rhine before returning to Butzbach. Along the way we saw about a dozen river baron castles dotting the hill sides, along with vineyards planted on every sunlit space the could be found in the valley.

After getting back to Butzbach, we spent our last evening in the town with all of the family, eating supper at Erich's and spending the evening talking about our trip with them and what everyone's planning on doing for the next few weeks and months.

Roslyn and I would just like to give a huge thanks to everyone who made the stay in Butzbach to awesome!