The Bavarian Castles of King Ludwig II

After spending the day as an expert window-washer, I now have time to update on the final leg of our trip last weekend. Before I begin, however, I have to note that after I had thoroughly washed all the windows in our apartment, the sky began to look like an oncoming summer storm in Texas. Of course it destroyed all my hard work, but on the upside, we got a nice bit of rain (no lightning, though…that’s rare here). I could do without the 32 mph wind gusts that are causing howling noises throughout our apartment, but oh well – it’s Friday, which means I’m happy for the weekend!

And now, to wrap up this series of posts on our recent travel experiences, I bring you: Linderhof Palace and Neuschwanstein Castle.

Sunday we drove out to Linderhof Palace, which is near Oberammergau, site of the Passion Play. The palace was one of 3 homes of King Ludwig II of Bavaria (known as the crazy king). We enjoyed a leisurely walk through the area but were disappointed to find out the Palace was under construction. Thus, it was not as pretty as it could have been. (For pictures of how it normally looks, try the Wikipedia page for Linderhof.)

Sunday night was the night we had set aside for our nice dinner at the lodge. We’d be returning to the same restaurant we ate at the night John asked me to marry him. (We ate there before he asked.) Unfortunately, we didn’t know we would need reservations and ended up with an hour and a half wait. We passed the time in a sitting area chatting about some old work stories. After our dinner, we went downstairs to the bar restaurant for a Snickers pie. It was yummy as always! On our way back up to our room, the elevator door started closing on me, and I didn’t see it, which ended up in a painful whack on the left side of my body. Ouch!

Monday, we woke up to a light dusting of snow. We checked out of the lodge and headed for Füssen and beyond to go to Neuschwanstein Castle (another of King Ludwig II’s homes). I was surprised to find out that this castle isn’t from hundreds of years ago. It was built in the late 1800s and was equipped with a telephone (with a crank) and indoor plumbing, which was cutting-edge technology for the time.

The castle is a steep hike up a mountain/hill (about 35 minutes). We took the first 30 minutes by carriage but ended up feeling really sorry for the horses. They looked like they were run ragged and didn’t get much love. We didn’t take the carriage on the way down.

Photos aren’t allowed inside the castle, so we got what photos we could and enjoyed our tour indoors. Here’s a quick excerpt on Neuschwanstein from Wikipedia:

Neuschwanstein literally means “new swan stone castle.” The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as an homage to Richard Wagner, the King’s inspiring muse. Ludwig did not allow visitors to his castles, but after his death in 1886 the castle was opened to the public (in part due to the need to pay off the debts Ludwig incurred financing its construction). The palace has appeared in several movies, and was the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland Park and for the Cinderella Castles at the Magic Kingdom and Tokyo Disneyland.

Oh…I almost forgot. On our drive to and from Garmisch, we have to drive through Austria for a bit. This time, when we returned to Germany, we started singing the “Deustchland song” we learned during the Euro Cup this past summer. We decided this is a new tradition that we have to keep up every time we leave Germany and come back. If you’re curious, you can hear the song on our YouTube video we took from the Euro Cup watching party in downtown Schwetzingen.

I tried to caption the photos well, so hopefully no further explanation is needed. If so, just ask! And, as always, just click on the slide show to make the photos larger.

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