Fiendish italian transit officials! Castles!

Monday
Monday morning, I woke up in the Milan airport, ready to leave for Munich.  However, before I left, I had a few questions about my route, and wanted to confirm things with one of the Italian transit people. PROTIP: when in doubt about which route you are going to take, do not ask an Italian transit official.  After explaining to them that I had a eurail pass for a certain number of countries, they proceeded to give me a route which led through a country outside of the pass, and so when I found that out later on, I had to pay the 10 euro or so for that one part of the route.
I eventually ended up in Munich. Sadly, my camera had died at this point, and since i left my charger at home, I was not able to get pictures.  Sorry bout that. I tried going to several different hotels and asking if they had that type of charger (hotels/hostels often have a big bin of chargers behind the desk that people leave behind at the hotel, so you are usually able to rummage through it, looking for one that might work), but no one had my specific type.
The rest of the day, I walked around the city of Munich.

Picture borrowed from http://www.orangesmile.com/ because I was camera-less.

Tuesday
In the morning i visited the street market in the city center and bought some produce, then took the train out to the town of Fussen to visit Neuschwanstein castle.  In the planning phase of my trip, i remembered that europe has cool castles, so i googled something along the lines of "best castles in europe", and stumbled upon this one.  Take that, frommer's and lonely planet.

Neuschwanstein castle.  This photo is from http://thebesttraveldestinations.com/

Neuschwanstein castle is pretty stunning.  After Ludwig II's father died and funding was available, Ludwig II (the king of the region) started pouring all of his funds into castle construction. You would think being a king of a rich region would provide you with more than than enough money to build a castle, but I guess the popular saying remains true:  never trust a Bavarian to stick to a budget.  The king went into large amounts of debt building it, and never even completed construction, dying before work on the middle floor could be completed.  Upon his death, the royal family halted construction, and opened the castle up to the public. 

After touring the castle, I still had some time left before the last train departed for Munich, and so decided to forego the bus down the mountain in favor of walking.  it took me a while to figure out how to walk back to the town and train station, and at one point I accidentally started walking on a scenic trail. I am sure that the town's residents appreciate the gently winding paths, but i found them quite frustrating, as I had to make it back so I wouldn't miss the last train back to munich.  With that delay, I cut it pretty close, and eventually got on the train five minutes before departure.