Castles in Germany to Visit
Thirty listings and 28,228 reviews pointed at the same two valleys. Neuschwanstein costs 21.00 EUR at the counter and 23.50 booked online; the median here is 367.34 EUR, and the difference is the day, not the door.
Germany in this catalogue is not a country. It is two Bavarian valleys, one departure city and 30 listings, and every one of them costs more than the ticket inside it. The Bavarian state charges 21.00 EUR to walk into Neuschwanstein, or 23.50 with the booking fee it adds to every online ticket, including the free ones issued to under-18s. The cheapest German listing on this site is 60 EUR and the median is 367.34 EUR. None of that gap is a markup on the door. It is a coach out of Munich, a driver, a guide who talks on the way, and most of a day: 27 of the 30 products here run eight hours or more, and the shortest thing anyone sells is three hours long.
The second thing worth knowing before comparing anything is that the two castles served by the same ticket office do not belong to the same owner. Neuschwanstein and Linderhof are run by the Bavarian state palace administration. Hohenschwangau, the ochre castle across the valley, belongs to the Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds, a Wittelsbach family foundation, and so does the museum by the lake. One ticket office sells for all of them, which is why almost nobody notices the seam. The state's own 14-day card notices: it covers two of the three and stops at the third.
The median is also the wrong number to quote at anyone, and it is worth saying so on the page that publishes it. Half the German listings sit under 367.34 EUR and half above, but the quartiles are 75.00 and 589.05, and 16 of the 30 cost more than 250 EUR. That is two markets wearing one label: a seat on a coach, and a car with a driver. The 1,400 EUR at the top of the German range is the highest price anywhere in this catalogue, across all 11 countries. One more number belongs with those: only three of the thirty confirm a booking instantly, which matters when the scarce part of the purchase is an entry time rather than a seat.
What follows is Bavarian arithmetic. Which body owns which door, what the state card does and does not open, how many of these fit into one trip, and why the best rated German product in this catalogue costs nearly eight times the worst rated one and carries 42 times fewer reviews.
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Castles Experiences in Germany
A Driver Rather Than a Guide, and the Pickup Can Be the Airport
Private transport with free time at both castles rather than a guided tour: hotel, address or airport pickup, luggage help, and a driver who waits for you.
A Main Course and a Drink Are in the Price, and Pickup Can Be Füssen
Lunch at a historic Bavarian restaurant is part of the day, main course and a drink, and the pickup can be Munich, Garmisch-Partenkirchen or Füssen. Sales final.
A Neo-Romanesque Face on a High-Tech Castle, and the Floor He Never Finished
Three castles in a day with skip-the-line entry booked even at short notice, and a route out of Neuschwanstein through the unfinished floor and the kitchen.
Book the Castle Tickets Yourself; the Courtyards Cost Nothing
Door-to-door in a premium car with an English-speaking driver. Entry tickets are not included and must be booked online; the courtyards cost nothing.
Fourteen Rooms, 200 Metres Above the Gorge, and a Hall of Mirrors
A private day with skip-the-line entry at both castles: the fourteen decorated rooms at Neuschwanstein, and the Hall of Mirrors at the one Ludwig completed.
In Snow There Is No Shuttle and No Bridge, and the Carriage Takes You Down
A private day that says plainly what winter costs: no shuttle bus and no Mary's Bridge when there is snow. A horse-drawn carriage brings you back down.
Linderhof Alone, Three Hours in the Grounds, and One Add-On to Choose
The one day out of Munich that skips Neuschwanstein entirely: entry included, a 30-minute guided interior, and up to three hours in the park afterwards.
Ruling Bavaria from the Graswang Valley, and the Tour of the Exterior
A timed entry that is guaranteed, a guided walk of the outside of Neuschwanstein, and Linderhof in the valley where Ludwig II actually governed from.
Shuttle Up, Walk Across, Carriage Down, and the Church in the Meadow
Hotel pickup, the shuttle to Mary's Bridge before the castle and a horse carriage back down, plus the Wieskirche. Castle entry is a group tour, by castle rule.
Tickets to Both Included, and a Day Sold as a Budget of Minutes
Skip-the-line tickets to both castles are in the price, and the day is sold as 9.5 or 11 hours of time credit that each optional stop spends down.
You Set the Time and the Address, and the Way Back Isn't the Way Out
A private van collects you wherever and whenever you say, castle tickets already bought, and the return runs a different road past the Plansee or Oberammergau.
A 9:30 Start, Both Castles Inside, and 45 Minutes Uphill to the Bridge
The coach leaves at 9:30 rather than at dawn, and the day covers both castles: Ludwig's own and the one he grew up in, below it. The bridge is a 45-minute walk.
A Mythologist and Opera Singer, and the Train Instead of the Van
Your party alone, a guide with a doctorate in mythology and 32 years of storytelling, and the journey by first-class train rather than by road.
Bought by the Family in 1832, and Both Castle Tours Are Optional
The coach and the guide are included, the castle interiors are not: both tours are paid extras. Free time between them for the Alpsee and Mary's Bridge.
Every Admission Included, the Carriage Too, and 1 Hour 45 to Get There
All the admissions are prepaid and a horse-drawn carriage ride comes with them. Inside, both castles run entry as group tours, as their own rules require.
Leave Before Eight or Queue for the Bridge, and the Lake Where Ludwig Died
A private minivan day that starts early on purpose, past Lake Starnberg and the spot where Ludwig II died in 1886, with stops added or dropped as you go.
Lunch Over the Austrian Border at Reutte, and a Route That Changes as You Go
A private day with a native English-speaking guide, hotel pickup at eight, and lunch across the border at Reutte. Castle tickets are arranged but not included.
Ten to Twelve People, the 9:38 from Pasing, and a Swim in the Alpsee
A group of ten to twelve on the regional train to Füssen, with the castle ticket pre-booked and an entry time the day is built around, not the other way round.
The Coaster or Oberammergau, Never Both, and a Secret Spot if the Bridge Queues
One morning, two options and you pick one: the alpine coaster or an hour in Oberammergau. Lunch at a working brewery, castle ticket paid to the guide.
The Venus Grotto, Reopened in 2025 After Ten Years of Restoration
The grotto with its artificial lake is back after a decade of restoration, and only from 1 May to 15 October. Entry fees to both castles are in the price.
Tickets Guaranteed Even When the Castle Is Sold Out, Then a Christmas Market
The guide sells castle tickets on the day and they hold even when Neuschwanstein is sold out. Back in Munich, leave at 5:30 or walk on to the markets.
Both Entry Fees Included, 28 Seats, and Oberammergau Actually Stops
Neuschwanstein first thing at ten, a half hour on foot in Oberammergau, Linderhof at 3:45, back by seven. Both castle entries are in the price. 28 seats.
Pay the Guide in Cash, Choose One Castle or Both, and See Oberammergau from the Coach
Entry is not prepaid: choose one castle or both and pay the guide in cash. Linderhof at eleven, Neuschwanstein just after four, back after a two-hour drive.
Ten and a Half Hours, Linderhof First, and the Ticket Bought on the Day
A long day from Sonnenstraße: Linderhof in the morning with a tour, the gardens or a coffee, then Neuschwanstein without the queue but without the ticket.
Ratings collected by Viator, Tripadvisor and Civitatis
The 21 EUR ticket and the 367 EUR day
Start with what the state charges, because it is published and it does not move. Neuschwanstein is 21.00 EUR for an adult, 20.00 reduced, free for anyone under 18. Linderhof is 11.00 EUR, 10.00 reduced, and carries no booking fee at all for individual visitors. Hohenschwangau, the one the state does not run, is 23.50 EUR, which makes it the dearest of the three. Add the two state entries together and an adult has paid 32.00 EUR to get inside both palaces this site is built around.
Now put that against the catalogue. The cheapest German listing is 60 EUR for a three-hour ticket and guided tour. The next ones up are 69, 72, 75, 76 and 79 EUR, and all of those run between ten and eleven hours. The distance between 32 and 69 is not a markup on a ticket. It is the road out of Munich and back, a driver, a guide, and a working day.
A reseller cannot beat 21.00 EUR and none of them tries. What they sell is the two things the Bavarian system is worst at handing a visitor with one free day: a seat that gets there without a timetable, and a time slot that already exists. The state makes the second one hard on purpose. Tickets are not sold at the castle, only at the office down in the village, and that counter sells for the same day only, while stocks last.
Who runs which castle
The Bayerische Verwaltung der staatlichen Schlösser, Gärten und Seen runs Neuschwanstein and Linderhof, along with more than forty other sites across Bavaria. Hohenschwangau and the Museum der bayerischen Könige are run by the Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds. The two bodies share one ticket office, sell a combined ticket called the Königsticket at 43.50 EUR, and are otherwise unconnected.
The card that follows from this is the Bayerische Schlösserkarte: 40.00 EUR for 14 days, 55.00 for a year, 80.00 and 100.00 for the family and couple versions. It opens Neuschwanstein, Linderhof and over forty other state sites. It does not open Hohenschwangau, and the administration gives the reason in one line: that castle is not theirs.
Two things follow. The first is arithmetic. The two state entries in this cluster cost 32.00 EUR bought singly and the 14-day card costs 40.00, so the card only starts paying on a third state site somewhere else in Bavaria. The second is the one that ruins days. The card is not an entry. A cardholder at Neuschwanstein still has to reserve a free timed ticket online, no allocation is held back for cardholders, and the administration's wording is that free tickets are only issued if tickets are available.
| Palace | Run by | Adult entry | State card | Time inside |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neuschwanstein | Bavarian state administration | 21.00 EUR, 23.50 booked online | Covered, entry not guaranteed | About 30 minutes, guided |
| Hohenschwangau | Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds | 23.50 EUR, 26.00 booked online | Not covered at all | About 45 minutes, guided |
| Linderhof | Bavarian state administration | 11.00 EUR, no fee for individuals | Covered | About 25 minutes, guided |
Same owner, opposite risk
Neuschwanstein and Linderhof answer to the same office and behave nothing alike at the door. At Neuschwanstein the ticket office is down in the valley, it sells for the same day only, and it opens at 8:00, an hour before the castle, because that is when the day's extra tickets go on sale. At Linderhof, when the website runs dry, the state's own shop sends buyers to the counter on site, and an individual visitor pays no booking fee at all.
That gap matters more than the 10 EUR between the two prices. A Bavarian day built around Linderhof can be improvised on the morning. A day built around Neuschwanstein cannot, and this catalogue is priced accordingly: the 17 Linderhof listings have a median of 540.55 EUR because 11 of them are private tours, while the 20 Neuschwanstein listings sit at a median of 89.00 EUR and carry 28,126 of the cluster's 28,228 reviews.
What the reseller is really selling
Four of the 30 German titles here promise to skip a line, and exactly one product carries the flag in its data. On this mountain that wording means very little, and saying why is more useful than repeating it. Entry to Neuschwanstein is by guided tour at a fixed time. There is no queue at the castle door to be moved past, because no tickets are sold there. The queue that exists is at the office in the village, and it is a queue for what is left of that same day. A booked slot is a real thing to sell. It is not the same claim.
Transport is the other half of the invoice. Twenty-six of the thirty listings declare Munich as their starting point and a twenty-seventh gives a Munich street address. Not a single German product on this site includes hotel pickup, and not one of them is a bare entry ticket: the shortest runs 180 minutes and the median runs 570. Germany is the part of this catalogue where the purchase is a day rather than a monument, and the site-wide median of 240 minutes is less than half of what Bavaria asks for.
The Bavarian year, read off the ticket pages
What is open when, palace by palace
Bavaria's seasons are printed on ticket pages rather than felt in the weather. The dates that decide a trip are 28 March and 16 October above Füssen, and 15 April and 16 October at Linderhof, where the winter timetable also switches off the grotto and the park pavilions.
| Month | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NeuschwansteinThe summer season runs 28 March to 15 October and the winter one from 16 October. The counter that issues the tickets stops selling well before the castle stops admitting, which is the number that decides an afternoon. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| HohenschwangauSame seasons and the same ticket office, but the castle shuts at 16:30 in summer and 16:00 in winter. Doing both castles in one day only works in one order, and the state card is no help here. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| LinderhofOpen all year: 9:00 to 18:00 from 15 April to 15 October, 10:00 to 16:30 after that. The grotto and the park pavilions close for the winter, so a February ticket buys about 25 minutes. Linderhof also shuts on Shrove Tuesday, which the other two do not. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
Opening dates from the three official sites, read on 5 September 2026. All three close on 24, 25 and 31 December and on 1 January.
That table hides one asymmetry worth pulling out. In winter the two castles above Füssen lose hours and keep everything they have indoors. Linderhof loses the part people come for: from 16 October the grotto and the park buildings shut and the ticket is the palace alone, about 25 minutes of it. So the winter version of a Bavarian castle trip is not a shorter version of the summer one. It is a different itinerary, and the honest advice between November and March is to plan for one palace properly rather than two badly.
How many of these fit in one trip
Two palaces is the ceiling travellers tend to set for themselves, and in Bavaria the road sets it lower still. The pairing the market has settled on is Neuschwanstein and Linderhof: seven of the ten most reviewed German listings in this catalogue do both, and five of those seven run 630 minutes, which is ten and a half hours from a Munich pavement back to the same pavement.
Inside that day, the guided part is 55 minutes. Thirty at Neuschwanstein, twenty-five at Linderhof. Everything else is road, ticket office and the walk up the hill. That is not an argument against the product, which is how most people get to see both palaces in a single day off. It is an argument for reading the duration before the price, because nothing in the German tree runs under three hours and 27 of the 30 run over eight.
The third stop, when there is one, is Hohenschwangau, and it is fifteen to twenty minutes on foot from the same ticket office. Nobody in this catalogue sells it as the main event. It arrives folded inside the 43.50 EUR combined ticket, it is the castle the state card will not open, and it closes ninety minutes before its famous neighbour.
German questions with a number in the answer
Is the Bayerische Schlösserkarte worth buying for these castles?
Only if the trip goes further than these two valleys. The card is 40.00 EUR for 14 days or 55.00 for a year and opens more than forty state sites, Neuschwanstein and Linderhof among them. Those two entries cost 32.00 EUR bought separately, so the card starts paying on the third state site. It does not cover Hohenschwangau, and at Neuschwanstein it does not guarantee entry: the holder still books a free timed ticket online, with no allocation held back for cardholders.
Why does a 21 EUR castle cost 60 EUR and up on this site?
Because none of the 30 German listings is only the castle. The cheapest is a 60 EUR ticket and guided tour running three hours. Everything else is a day out of Munich with a median duration of 570 minutes. The median price of 367.34 EUR describes the private half of the market rather than the coach half, which sits at 69, 72, 75, 76 and 79 EUR.
Can I turn up in the morning and buy a ticket?
Sometimes, and never at the castle. Neuschwanstein tickets are sold only at the office in Hohenschwangau village, and that counter serves the same day only, while stocks last. A limited extra allocation is released there from 8:00 each morning. Linderhof behaves the other way round: individuals pay no booking fee there, and the palace keeps tickets at its own counter for the people its website has turned away.
How many Bavarian palaces fit in one day?
Two. Seven of the ten most reviewed German listings here visit Neuschwanstein and Linderhof, five of them inside 630 minutes. The guided time is 55 minutes of that day, thirty minutes at one palace and twenty-five at the other. A third stop is only realistic if it is Hohenschwangau, fifteen to twenty minutes on foot from the same ticket office.
Which German product is rated best, and which one sells most?
They are not the same product and they are not close. The best rated with a meaningful sample is a private Neuschwanstein and Linderhof tour: 5.0 from 179 reviews, at 541.50 EUR. The most reviewed is a 69 EUR coach day doing the same two castles, with 7,553 reviews and a 4.4, the lowest rating in the German tree. The cluster averages 4.637 across 28,228 reviews, a shade under the 4.653 this site carries overall.
Is there anything German here that is not a whole day?
One thing. A 60 EUR ticket with a guided tour, 180 minutes, which is the shortest German product in this catalogue and one of only three that run under eight hours. None of the 30 includes hotel pickup, so the clock starts where the coach does, in Munich, and not at a hotel door.
Data verified on. Prices, ownership and opening dates from neuschwanstein.de, hohenschwangau.de, schlosslinderhof.de and schloesser.bayern.de. Catalogue figures from the 30 German listings on this site.