Neuschwanstein Castle and Hohenschwangau: Tickets and the Day Trip

Tickets

Neuschwanstein castle tickets: the desk is the bottleneck

Neuschwanstein castle tickets cost 21 €, or 20 € reduced, and the castle can only be seen on a guided tour of about 30 minutes covering 14 rooms. The ticket is valid for one specific time. Turn up late and you do not go in. Without a ticket you can walk up to the gate and see the outside, but not the courtyard.

The rules around that are stricter than most visitors expect:

• Both castles can only be entered on a guided tour at a fixed time.
• The ticket desk sells same-day tickets only. Remaining tickets go on sale at 8am and can be gone before lunch.
• There are no reservations, no waiting list, no date changes and no refunds.
• The online shop takes credit cards and PayPal only.
• Children need a ticket even when it is free: everyone present has to be accounted for.
• A Bavarian Palace Department annual pass still requires a timed Neuschwanstein ticket and the booking fee.
• Arrive late for your tour and you do not go in. Luggage, pushchairs and child carriers are not allowed inside.

Neuschwanstein castle tickets bought online carry a booking fee of 2.50 € per person, and that applies to the free children’s tickets too, a detail that catches families out at the checkout.

In practice: arriving without an online ticket means planning a day whose main event may not happen. The ticket centre at Alpseestraße 12, 87645 Hohenschwangau opens at 8am, and the palace administration’s own advice is to be there at opening or slightly before.

Hohenschwangau castle is the more expensive one

Foto: Jakub Hałun · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

This is the first surprise in the price column. Hohenschwangau castle costs 23.50 €, or 19.50 € reduced, 2.50 € more than Neuschwanstein, which almost everyone assumes to be the pricier of the two because it is the famous one. The reason is not the market but the ownership: one castle is run by the state, the other privately.

The tour is longer too, about 45 minutes, with roughly 180 steps and no lift. Hohenschwangau is also the older building: first recorded in the 12th century as Schwanstein castle, rebuilt between 1833 and 1837 by Crown Prince Maximilian, and the house in which Ludwig II spent his childhood. Neuschwanstein was built within sight of it.

The second difference matters for families and appears in no guidebook side by side. At Neuschwanstein and the museum, under-18s pay nothing; at Hohenschwangau, 7- to 17-year-olds pay 12 €. For two adults with two school-age children that is 42 € against 71 €, a gap of 29 €, for two tours in the same village.

Free of charge, by contrast: the courtyard and garden at Hohenschwangau, and the Marienbrücke. Neuschwanstein makes no such concession.

Füssen and the last five kilometres

The nearest station is Füssen, often written Fussen in English, 5 kilometres from the castles. Regional trains run there from Munich Hauptbahnhof, and from Füssen station the RVA 73 Richtung Steingaden/Garmisch-Partenkirchen oder RVA 78 Richtung Schwangau, Haltestelle Hohenschwangau, Alpseestraße takes ca. 15 Minuten; a taxi takes ca. 8 Minuten. There is no station closer, and Füssen itself is worth the walk round if the tour times leave a gap.

In the village of Hohenschwangau there is only paid private parking, and the road up to Neuschwanstein is closed to cars and bicycles. Everyone therefore starts from the bottom. On foot it is 30–40 Min., ca. 1,5 km, erhebliche Steigung to Neuschwanstein and 20–30 Min. to Hohenschwangau. The shuttle bus from car park P4 costs 3.50 € up and 5 € return, and drops you 5 Gehminuten zur Marienbrücke, 15 Gehminuten zum Schloss Neuschwanstein, bergab mit 12 bis 19 Prozent Gefälle. It does not run on snow or ice.

The day trip: doing both castles in one day

Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau can be done in a single day, but not casually. The operators ask you to be in the village 1 Stunde vor der Einlasszeit im Ort sein for Hohenschwangau and 1,5 bis 2 Stunden vor der Einlasszeit im Ort sein for Neuschwanstein. Add the walks and two tours of 45 and 30 minutes and the day is full.

Put Hohenschwangau first. It has the shorter lead time and the shorter climb, which leaves the longer approach for the afternoon when you already know the village. The Museum of the Bavarian Kings is the buffer between them: it is the only thing here with no fixed time, so it absorbs whatever gap the tour slots leave you.

Foto: Wilfredor · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons

The view

The Marienbrücke and what is free

The Marienbrücke over the Pöllat gorge gives the view every photograph uses, and it costs nothing. It is a structure independent of the castle: the tour route does not cross it, and a closed bridge says nothing about whether tours are running. In winter it shuts whenever there is ice or snow, decided day by day.

One trap is in the order of things. If you ride the shuttle up to the bridge first and then decide you want to go inside, you have to come back down, because tickets are only sold in the village. Buy the castle ticket before you go up.

In short

Common questions

Prices, opening hours and rules as of August 2026, taken from the Bavarian Palace Department and the Ticket Center Hohenschwangau. Both castles are closed on 1. Januar sowie 24., 25. und 31. Dezember. Diese Seite auf Deutsch.