Neuschwanstein, the fairy tale castle above the clouds.
Since March 2016 I've been working part-time as a guide at
the
Neuschwanstein castle,
one of the most popular tourist attractions in Germany. It has been a
great experience to do something completely different than my previous
jobs, and the view out of the "office" windows is the best
I've ever had. :-) In addition to greeting thousands of visitors from
around the world, through the work I've gotten to know many nice
colleagues, some even from the same village we are living in.
The castle is located a good 10 km from our apartment, on top of a
hill so we actually see it from our windows. It takes me about 50
minutes to cycle there and change my clothes to the official outfit of
the guides. I work normally on Mondays and Wednesdays, starting at
8, 9 or 10 in the morning, and finishing between 16:30 and
19 in the evening. During July-September I'll be there one more day
per week, usually Thursdays. Additionally I'm still involved in IT
projects on a freelance basis, so this year has been busier than
usual.
View from the castle towards lake Bannwaldsee.
With more than a million visitors per year Neuschwanstein is the top
tourist magnet of the area. All visits of the castle are guided tours,
which guarantees that there is enough to do. During the busiest time
of the day, a new tour with up to 60 participants starts every 5
minutes. Every guide on duty does up to 10 tours a day, lasting about
half an hour each. After the tour there's some time for answering
questions, coming back to the starting point and preparing for the
next tour, usually also for a short break in between.
View from the castle towards Füssen.
The tours come in three varieties: spoken tours in English and German,
plus audio tours where each visitor gets a portable device and can
choose the language from 18 alternatives. On an audio tour, the job of
the guide is to lead the group through the castle, activate the audio
guides at pre-defined points and help in case of any problems. That
gives occasionally a chance to practise other languages than English
and German. In addition to the tours, the guides are also responsible
of cleaning the exhibition rooms. That's done every morning before the
first tour starts.
Me on the castle courtyard. Photo by Vladi Kurucova.
A world famous attraction brings in an international audience. One
clearly visible trend is the rise of Chinese tourism: without any
statistics in hand I'd guess that Chinese are already the second
largest group of visitors right after Germans. Also other Asian
countries, Northern America and large European countries such as
France, Italy and Spain are well represented. Russians and East
Europeans come often as well, and occasionally we receive South
Americans too. Africans and Middle Eastern visitors are a rarity, even
with Arabic offered as one of the languages on audio guide tours. A
few times I've also met Finns in the castle.
The outfit of the guides. Photo by Vladi Kurucova.
Neuschwanstein has more visitors and longer opening hours during the
summer than in winter. Therefore they search guides for the summer
season every year to complement the permanent staff, and that's how I
also found the job. There is a range of different contracts available:
full time, part time and a fixed number of days during the season,
which suits especially students working during university holidays.
I'm one of the three foreigners, the other two being Fabienne from
France and Vladi from Slovakia. There are no dedicated English and
German guides, we all do spoken tours in both languages as well as
audio tours. My German isn't perfect, but being allowed to guide
natives at one of the landmarks of Bavaria confirms that it's good
enough.
My contract is until the middle of November, a couple of weeks into
the more quiet winter season. That means that I'll spend this summer
and autumn mostly in Germany. One of my free time plans is to visit
some other castles and palaces in the region. As an employee in one of
the historic buildings managed by the state of Bavaria, there are
quite a few
others I have free entrance to.
Neuschwanstein castle on a nice April afternoon.
The title photo shows Neuschwanstein five years ago, with the
valley behind covered in fog, when I was visiting the area with my family.
That was a magical moment, doing justice
to the nickname "Märchenschloss", the fairytale castle. The
other photos have been taken in spring 2016, featuring the view out of
the windows of the guides' lounge, me at the castle courtyard and
another view of the castle taken near the Marienbrücke bridge.
The bridge is currently closed but should open again in August.
Finally, a tip for everybody who'd like to visit the castle,
especially on a summer weekend: come early in the morning. The first
tour starts at 9 am, but the ticket center opens already at 8. Later
in the morning you'll have to stand in the queue for quite a while,
and in the afternoon all tickets for the day might even be sold
out. Alternatively you can
make a reservation
in advance — there's a separate line to pick up pre-booked
tickets. If you have a long waiting time before the beginning of the
tour, a pleasant way to spend that is to take a walk along the shore
of the nearby Alpsee lake.
