Bavaria With a 3 Year Old: Castles and Wildflowers

As soon as we had decided we would travel to Germany last summer, I knew I wanted to go to Schwangau, a place we’d first visited in 2007 while I was pregnant. I thought I wanted to return so we could wow our princess-crazed preschooler with Neuschwanstein, a real and quite picturesque castle. I would probably concede that I also wanted to show her the  Hotel Ruebezahl, the place where I first felt her kick me.

But as we made our way through the Bavarian countryside in the late afternoon and I took in the stoney, angular alps, the green grazing fields studded with cows, the farmhouses and small inns and the cycling tourists with their maps and backpacks, I realized that I wanted to come back because Schwangau is pretty and tranquil and kind of magical...

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