Posting by Mikaela

Backtrack Post (by Mikaela): 7/10/11

Today was an early, long day. We got up at 5:30 am and got ready to leave by 6:45 am. We were heading to Shloss (castle) Neuschwanstein . It was about a 3 hour ride in the bus. It gets pretty boring in the bus, so I listen to my  i-pod and read my Seventeen magazines. We stop about every two hours for a restroom break. You have to pay to use public restrooms here! It’s pretty rare to find one where you don’t have to pay. That stinks. Anyway, the castle was stunning. We had to walk a long, tiring way uphill, but it was good exercise. The castle was home to King Ludvig II, for only about 172 days before he died mysteriously. (Most likely murder.) The outside of the castle was beautiful, but the inside was absolutely, amazingly, gorgeous. I want to live there! It’s probably the most beautiful castle in the world. I’m so glad I got to see it. After Neuschwanstein, we traveled a few hours to Innsbruck, Austria, where we stopped for a little bit. They had tons of cute little tourist souvenir shops there. I got a little animal keychain. We also got a piece of chocolate cake to try at the hotel. It was really soft and yummy. Then, it was a long drive to Italy. We are currently in Lido, Italy. There’s no air conditioning in the hotel, but it cools down at night. We went to the beach at around 11:30 pm and the moonlight on the water was beautiful! I really like Italy so far. We’ve got a long hot day in Venice tomorrow!