On this outing we made up for all of the days that we didn't hike. The trail leading to the castle was steep and high (though not as steep as the pictures make it look). Beyond the castle, another trail leads to a high footbridge that puts you on another mountain. If you go high enough on this mountain, you can look down on the castle from above. In one direction you can gaze out over miles of level Bavarian farmland, and in the other direction you see glacial lakes nestled between the Alps that rise abruptly from the plains. The fall colors were brilliant and everything was bathed in sunshine. As we thought about what this place must be like during the heat and crowds of summer, we realized that we could not have picked a more perfect day to come to this magical place.

Our plan for Sunday was to get from Buchloe to the resort town of Prien am Chiemsee, which we are told is a beautiful place on a big lake in the Bavarian Alps. Unfortunately, we never got to see it. We had to go through Munich, where we thought we'd spend maybe an hour getting on the Internet to send communication home, take a quick look around town, then get back on the train to move on. HAH! The computer gods had other plans.

If you don't want to - as RoZ puts it - slog through all the techie stuff, then skip the main text of the next few pages and just check out the pictures of Munich.