Fairy Tale Castles

Monday, September 16, 2013

We thought that perhaps being a Monday instead of a weekend, there might be fewer people visiting the famous Neuschwanstein castle. Wrong. And, it rained most of the day, so this photo of Ludwig's fairy-tale castle is all we've got. Still, we enjoyed our day in beautiful Bavaria.

Janet and I were up early, 6:00, and had our coffee. The coffeemaker works pretty well, even though I have to fold and bend to make our round filters fit the conical shape. We ate muesli and peach yogurt for breakfast in our room. Not bad. We departed at 8:15, stopping first at the little market in Scharnitz to exchange what we had originally thought was coffee, but after inspecting the label, I realized it wasn't. We don't know what it was, but it wasn't coffee. Luckily we have been using ground coffee we brought from home and hadn't opened the faux coffee, so we decided to see if they'd let us exchange it for real coffee. They did.

To get to Füssen where the two castles are, we passed through Garmisch and then west on a small scenic highway back into Austria. It was too rainy to see the mountain tops at first, but by the time we headed more south and over to Ehrwald, we could look back and see the entire range where the Zugspitze is. At our first opportunity, we stopped at a local bank in Lermoos to exchange money. Up to this point, we've managed on the 70 € that Nika gave us before we left. But now we needed more cash, so we exchanged $500. 

Since the woman spoke pretty decent English, I decided to ask her how I might make a phone call to MasterCard so that I could have them send my car insurance coverage to the rental agency in Munich. She didn't know how, but thought the tourist office might know. I walked over there, but they didn't know either, and I couldn't figure it out at their pay phone. So, I went back into the bank and asked if I could use their phone. Waiting my turn, and letting them check with their manager, etc., it was a long time before they let me call, and I assured them it was a call whereby MasterCard accepted the charges. I did get through, but they said the office dealing with car insurance didn't open for many more hours due to the time difference in the U.S. Oh bother! The fellow still said I needed to pay them a Euro for making the call. 

Janet and I then decided to go to the local super market since it was a lot larger than the small one in Scharnitz. She wanted goulash soup in particular, since she'd enjoyed it the previous night for dinner. We also bought bread and cheese. By the time we finally left Lermoos, we'd been there a whole hour! At least it had small-town alpine charm, and wonderful scenery in all directions. 

The drive to Füssen was very nice, but still wet. Incredible valleys and occasional views of mountain peaks. When we got there, we followed signs saying King's Castles since they are outside the town a bit. As we parked, we could look up and see the famous castle, so that was pretty cool. First order of business was to use the WC, but by golly, you had to pay!

It seemed funny to pay for a toilet like this at the edge of a parking lot, but those turnstiles would not open until you put a 50-cent piece in the slot. 

We purchased the combined ticket for both Hohenschwangau castle and Neuschwanstein, and the next tour in English was for the former. So, up the hill we trudged with our single compact umbrella protecting us from the rain. Once up there, we still had to wait until our tour was called. They used a digital display to show which tour numbers were up and those on deck.

This is our view of the castle as we waited. This was where Ludwig's parents stayed when they wanted some leisure away from Munich, so as a boy, Ludwig and his little brother spent much time here. There had been a medieval burg there from the 12th century, but then daddy tore it down in 1833 and built this dream castle to look medieval. That made it a schloss! We enjoyed the tour, although it was very crowded and the guide seemed to speak only from a script. Janet wished she could linger to inspect things more closely, and to peek into rooms that were not part of the tour (only 14 rooms were open). It also was our first of many explanations about Ludwig's life and how he died mysteriously with his psychiatrist. By the time we heard the whole story again at the 2nd castle, Janet guessed correctly that Ludwig was gay. She wondered whether that was why he was killed, not because of his lavish spending.

Since Janet's foot does okay walking up hills but not down, we decided to take the horse carriage back down the hill. Janet made a joke about "our first carriage ride" because it was not too romantic being in the very front, right behind two horse butts!

Still, it was nice to get a ride down and give Janet's ankle a rest. I took the next photo to show how snugly we had it! He didn't speak any English.

At the bottom, we decided to join the long line for a bus ride up to Neuschwanstein. It was a very slow line and the buses seemed to come too infrequently for us to get to our tour on time, so once we'd finally made it up to the ticket window, we bolted the line to walk up since a sign said it was only a 15-min walk. There were still seemingly WAY too many people in front of us waiting for the buses.

Well, it was no 15 minutes -- more like 30. But it was okay, and the rain was light. We still made it to the waiting area with time to spare, so we got some nice views of the Marienbrüke bridge and valley off to the north.

Ludwig's daddy (King Max II) built the first bridge here out of wood, and then Ludwig had it updated with metal in 1866, as soon as he became king. He would frequently walk over there to get side views of his castle as it was being built (which went on for 17 yrs until he died). He spent only 172 days there during his life.

Typically, all pictures of Neuschwanstein make it seem like it's deep in the Alps, but it's actually at the edge, and this flatland extends northward. The lake behind Janet is Forggensee, whereas photos of the castle taken southward show a small lake, Alpsee, in front of the towering Alps (like the one used in the first posting for this blog).

Our tour was again crowded and they hurried us through, but we did enjoy it. Only 15 of the 65 rooms were ever finished, but for those that were, "lavish" is a vast understatement (no photos allowed). The Throne Room was amazing. His bedroom was small, and that's where he was arrested in 1886. It was his psychiatrist, who was found dead with him, who had headed up the committee to declare Ludwig insane just a month earlier. After seeing how extremely opulent he was and how he had crazy plans for even more castles, Janet agreed he was totally flipped out.

After seeing such splendor, it was quite a shock when the tour would suddenly see an unfinished room. Just plain white bricks. At the end, we watched a video about the building of the castle and some of Ludwig's unrealized plans for yet another castle he called Falkenstein. As we departed, we thought we were headed to where the buses were to take us down the hill. However, we somehow went the wrong way and decided to get into the waiting area for the horse carriage again. It finally did come and we got to listen to the Japanese guys across from us singing a Beatles song and yakking away as we plodded down to the city.

By then it was late afternoon and we had never had anything to eat since breakfast, so we chose a cozy-looking restaurant right there in the touristy thick of things. The König Ludwig beers were sure welcome, and Janet liked her arrabbiata pasta and I my sausages. 

This little fast-food joint ("Imbiss") out our window was pretty funny. We were glad we had a more comfortable venue after a day in the rain and cold. 

Our drive home was the same for a ways, but then we looped to the south and then east to get to see some new scenery for our return. We went over Fernpass, which gave us some winding roads with vast valley views. Once we reached Telfs, my written directions through town were no good because the road signs in Germany and Austria rarely used street names, only a distant town in that direction. So, I just headed in what seemed like the correct direction, and finally we saw a sign toward Seefeld and that's what we wanted. 

Up up up and around steep bends, we eventually got to Seefeld and got to see their ski jumps and water slides on the south side of town. It is quite a large winter resort town, and we felt lucky to be staying so close to it. Back at the time share, Janet fixed us cheese sandwiches for dinner, and of course we had our beer. Another long day, but we got to see interesting stuff, and the scenery going and coming was of course spectacular.