After concluding our time in Salzburg, we headed for Schwangau Germany, home of King Ludwig II’s Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castles where we were booked to stay at the das Rubezahl Hotel (http://www.hotelruebezahl.de/en/).  The hotel is quite nice and has unobstructed views of the castles and the Alps.  Breakfast and dinner were included in our room rate so no reports on restaurants in the area.

We made two stops on the 126 mile drive.  The first was in the village of Bichl.  I was curious if there might be anyone there named Bichlmueller, the name of my maternal great grandfather who emigrated to the USA from Germany in 1884.  There were none in the phone book for the area though Bichlmaier was common.  As “bichl” means hill, the Mueller’s from probably “the bichl” could have been from anywhere in Germany but I am glad I made the visit just in case there was some interesting discovery to be made.

After a wonderful lunch at the Gasthof zue Post (where fortunately the chef spoke enough English to describe the menu to us) in Benediktbeuern, which is adjacent to Bichl,  it was off to Ettal to see the Baroque Benedictine Abbey there.  Very lovely of course.  From there we headed on to Schwangau.

As mentioned above we have no restaurant reports from this stay.  But we did spend some time on two afternoons at a market in Fussen called Feuerhaus which had a bakery, wine bar, beer bar, cheese shop, meat counter and a place to buy Mediterranean snacks and dishes.  A pleasant conclusion to our days and a style of “relaxing” it would be nice to have more of in the States.