Lindhof Palace was the first stop. This was formerly a hunting lodge, that King Ludwig II turned into a retreat. I learned that Ludwig is the German version of Louis. Anyway, poor Ludwig II did not want to be a king, so he built palaces as a way to escape from the royal duties. This was his first palace.
Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside. Inside, it was over the top and ostentatious, with everything covered in gold leaf, bright colors, lots of scrollwork. I'm sure pictures are posted online somewhere. It was very reminiscent of Versailles, and that was done on purpose because Ludwig II admired Louis XIV of France, including having portraits of him plus his mistresses!
Our tour guide said this was her favorite stop of the trip...but I think I have to disagree, as you will see shortly. We were driving into the German Alps, and were actually very close to the border with Austria. I attempted some window pictures...some where more successful than others:
Next stop was Oberammergau. Now, the whole reason I chose this tour over others that also visited the two palaces, was because of Oberammergau. I remember reading one of the Betsy-Tacy books, Betsy and the Big World (or something like that) where she goes off on a Grand Tour of Europe, and I remember she stopped at Oberammergau! I don't remember anything else about the stop, just that she went there and they did wood carvings and the passion play....but I figured it was as good a reason as any for picking one tour over another!
Oberammergau is a more traditional Bavarian village, and we even saw an older man walking around in lederhosen and his cap! Every ten years, since 1634, the entire village has put on a passion play. What happened in 1634 is a man brought the plague to the village, and people started dying. The town prayed to God and promised to perform a passion play if he would spare them - and everyone who was sick got well, and no one else died from the plague. Since they, the entire village comes together to put on this play every ten years, in years ending in 0, so the next one is in 2020. Many of the houses are also decorated with scenes from either the Bible or folk tales. Here is Little Red Riding Hood:
Our final stop of the day was what I had been waiting for - Neuschwanstein Castle. Which really isn't a castle...it's a palace. So the difference between palace and castle is that a castle was meant to be fortified, whereas a palace does not have any fortification. Neuschwanstein was also built by Ludwig II, but it was never finished. At this one, he wanted it to look like a medieval castle, and again use it as a place to escape. His story is so sad - he never wanted to be king, but became one at age 20 when his father died. When he was 40, his uncle had him declared mentally unfit (by 5 psychiatrists who had never even spoken to the king), and four days later he died. It was said at the time he drowned in a lake to commit suicide, though it's more likely he was murdered. He only spent 172 days at Neushwanstein and it was only 30% complete at the time he died. Though it's a sad story, he created a beautiful castle.
Our first glimpse of the castle from the bus:
I'm a fan of castles - I love visiting them; I love walking through even the ruined ones. This was such a fairy tale castle and I absolutely adored it. I can only imagine what it would be like if he had completed it! Again, there were no pictures allowed...which was so disappointing. My absolutely favorite room was the grotto - he had a cave built into part of the castle, with special colored lighting installed! It was so magical. I can see why he wanted to escape from life and hide out in this palace. Though there weren't any pictures allowed inside, the outside pictures almost make up for it.
There was another castle nearby, whose name I will totally misspell since I'm not online at the moment and can't look it up - Hof-something. It was older but unfortunately we didn't have time to go inside.
We had two and a half hours before our timed entry into the castle, which sounds like a lot of time but it went by so quickly. The castle is up the side of a mountain, and there are three ways to reach it: minibus, horse and carriage, or walking. There were so many people here - so so so many. And the bus runs every 20 minutes, so we made the decision to walk up and maximize our time. Plus it gave us so many photo opportunities! Though it was at a constant incline, it wasn't ever ridiculously steep...however our legs certainly got a workout!
There is a bridge which was said to have the best view of the castle, so of course we made our way over there. What we didn't realize until we were there was that this is what the bridge looked like:
Neither of us are a fan of heights, and Phil decided not to go on it. What you can't really see in this picture is that it is completely packed with tourists. And that there are kinda wobbly wooden boards. I was determined to see the best view, and it was worth it:
I won't mention how terrified I was of dropping my phone! After a few pictures I scooted right off and we made our way to the tour of the castle.
I absolutely loved it. And I think Phil liked it too...he's just not as obsessed with castles as I am!
Definitely my favorite day in Munich and maybe my favorite of the whole trip so far. As I write this, we are on the plane enroute to Glasgow, and it's also the halfway point of the trip.
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