I love my birthday…week. Instead of celebrating our birthdays on just one day, Mike and I have come up with a scheme to celebrate our birthdays for a full week. We get to do (practically) whatever we want to do. And because it’s birthday week, the other person is super nice to the birthday girl/boy.

It’s pretty easy for my husband to make me happy during my birthday week. He just plans a trip. This year, we visited three German cities: Hohenschwangau, Oberammergau, and Munich.

Two of King Ludwig II’s castles are located in Hohenschwangau. Schloss Hohenschwangau is a castle that belonged to Ludwig’s family. When his father died, it became his castle. It’s a picturesque castle that sits on a small-ish hill, overlooking the village. We decided to hike up to castle because it didn’t seem that difficult. (That hike was the first of two decisions that I regretted for the remainder of birthday week).

Schloss Hohenschwangau

The view from Hohenschwangau

One of the fountains on the castle grounds. The king loved swans.

Considering how big the castle looks on the outside, the rooms inside seemed quite small. We took a group tour inside the castle (No Pics Please), but I don’t remember what the guide talked about. Every time he would speak, Brian (age 3) would also speak…loudly. I’m sure, “Are we done, yet?” was not at all related to what the guide was saying about Hohenschwangau.

But it’s probably a line uttered by King Ludwig during the construction of his own personal castle (which was never completed). Work on Neuschwanstein began in 1869. However, when Ludwig died in 1886, it was still unfinished.

The Fairytale turrets of Neuschwanstein were the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disneyland

Neuschwanstein is a beautiful castle that sits on a rugged hill…several miles from Hohenschwangau. We took a group tour inside this castle, too. (Thankfully, Brian was nowhere in sight.) The rooms were a bit bigger. We only toured the rooms that were completed before the King’s death. He actually lived in those rooms for 172 days, before he died.

The view from Neuschwanstein…you can see Hohenschwangau on the bottom right

After climbing down the mountain (the second decision I regretted), we drove into the town of Oberammergau. King Ludwig has a castle there too, but we didn’t plan on seeing it. Good thing…because after we had dinner everything was closed. So, we headed to Munich.

On the second day of our trip, we had a BMW kind of morning. We visited the BMW Museum and BMW Welt (World). If you like cars, especially BMWs, this is the place for you.

BMW Welt

Inside BMW Welt

BMW Museum

Later that day we visited Marienplatz. “Mary’s Square” has a famous Glockenspiel that sits on top of the Rathaus near the center of the square. And for several minutes, at the top of certain hours, the Glockenspiel plays while little figurines move around depicting scenes of a wedding and a jousting match. It’s a good thing we’ve seen it before, because we missed it this time. But we did manage to see a few things we missed before. So, it all worked out in the end.

The Frauenkirche of Munich…is just behind that shorter building

Inside the Frauenkirche…

The high ceilings of the Frauenkirche

Theatinerkirche

Feldherrnhalle

National Theatre of Munich

Day three was our last day in Munich, but before we drove back to Stuttgart we stopped in Augsburg. Okay…on Sundays, most of Germany shuts down: no grocery stores, no malls. Except for a few restaurants and gas stations, everything is closed. Well, Augsburg is not an exception to that rule. We found ourselves in and out of Augsburg very quickly.

The only picture I took in Augsburg

And that was my birthday week getaway. I saw some mountaintop castles, some highly priced cars, and spent most of my week with my head in the clouds. Now, all I have to do is come up with something equally fun for my husband’s birthday week. Maybe he’ll help me plan something great. 🙂