Experience the best of Hohenschwangau

Hohenschwangau sits on the Bavarian edge of the Alps, close to the Austrian border, beside the green Alpsee. Above it stand two castles. Hohenschwangau Castle, rebuilt in neo-Gothic style from 1832 by the future Maximilian II, was the childhood home of Ludwig II. His own dreamlike creation, Neuschwanstein, begun in 1869 on a crag above the Pöllat gorge, was still unfinished when he died in 1886.

The Marienbrücke, a bridge across the gorge, gives the classic view of the castle, and a museum on the Alpsee shore is devoted to the Bavarian kings. Füssen, a few kilometres north, has a medieval old town with a castle and the abbey of St Mang beside the Lech falls. The Wieskirche, a UNESCO-listed pilgrimage church, lies to the north-east, and the Forggensee reservoir spreads below the Tegelberg.

Allgäu mountain cheese, hearty soups, sausages with sauerkraut and Kaiserschmarrn fill the village inns. The crowds are heaviest in summer, and a covering of snow in winter quiets the valley and gives the castles a different mood.