Three Castles

After checking out of our hotel and having an extensive conversation with the desk clerk about our plans for the day and the best way to get to Neuschwanstein castle, we decided to alter our plans under her advice and add an extra castle to our itinerary. We ventured out on some little country roads, out past the little town of Oberammergau, the site of the original passion play, to Linderhof castle, main residence of "Mad" King Ludwig of Bavaria. It was between 40-50 degrees, windy, and occasionally rainy all day, but these poor weather conditions were offset by the beauty of the castles we visited.

Linderhof Scloss was the main residence of "Mad" King Ludwig II, after it was finished. He lived here for 8 of the 22 years that he ruled as King. He had an extensive garden around the castle as well, complete with several fountains. While Ludwig commissioned several castles, Linderhof was the only one completed in his lifetime; it had the look of a large mansion rather than a castle. Unfortunately, pictures of the interior of the castle were forbidden, because the interior decor was quite resplendant and well-furnished. In addition to the authentic furniture that was used in the castle (including a 9 foot long bed since Ludwig was 6'4"), Ludwig also hadatural. gold-leaf covered woodwork in every single room except one, canvas paintings on every wall made to look like French tapestries, and masterfully painted ceilings. In addition, he had the first electricity in Bavaria generated here, and a "magic table" that could be lowered into the kitchen from the King's dining room so he wouldn't have to have contact with the servants. There were several priceless works of art here, including a solid Indian ivory chandelier and an admirable collection of vases. Just outside of his castle, he had a man-made cave built, by carving out a 97-foot long and 42 foot high room in a hillside, setting up iron rebar, and spraying cement all over the rebar until he had a cave that looked completely natural. It was here that the King would indulge one his favorite pasttimes: listening to Wagnerian operas performed while being rowed around in a swan-shaped boat in a small pond in the cave.

After visiting Linderhof Schloss, we continued on to the small village of Schwangau, which lay in the shadow of two mighty castles: Hohenschwangau, the boyhood home of King Ludwig II, and Neuschwanstein, the dream castle that Mad Ludwig never finished and arguably one of the most famous castles in the world. Afer having a small lunch of Bratwurst from a street vendor, which we unanimously agreed were some of the best Bratwurst we've ever had, we started our tour of the first castle, Hohenschwangau.

From a distance, the most striking feature of Hohenschwangau Schloss is its vibrant yellow coloring. Though it was originally built in the 12th century, Napoleon destroyed it on his way through Europe; this paved the way for King Maximilian II of Bavaria, Mad Ludwig's father, to rebuild it in the 1830's. It then served mainly as a hunting lodge and summer home for the royal family, and under Ludwig's rule, a station for him to be able to monitor the construction of his dream castle Neuschwanstein. The gardens are still well-kept and beautiful, and several different fountains litter the elevated gardens. The ramparts offer a beautiful view of the surrounding terrain, overlooking the nearby Schwangau with the Bavarian Alps in the distance. The interior of the castle, while larger, was not nearly as impressive as Linderhof. The most entertaining aspect of the interiors were the murals that were painted directly onto the wall; Maximillian designed Hohenswchangau to tell different parts of the history of the family of the Holy Roman Empire through the murals in each room. In addition, an original piano upon Richard Wagner would play during his visits to Ludwig was on prominant display.

After finishing the Hohenschwangau tour, we took a bus to the by Marienbrücke (Mary's Bridge), which left us with only a 10 minute walk to the entrance to the impressive Neuschwanstein Schloss. Though Neuschwanstein had been visible to us since we first entered Schwangau, the view from Mary's Bridge was our impressive first view of the entire castle, and of the astounding chasm that the bridge crossed.

Neuschwanstein Schloss was our final castle of the day. Commisioned by King Ludwig II, construction began 1869. Ludwig dedicated the castle to Richard Wagner and his operas, so many of the main rooms on the inside have canvas paintings in the style of French tapestries on the walls that depict the primary scenes from a specific opera. The interior of the castle as it exists today is only about 1/3 of what was planned by Ludwig; in 1886, after only living in the castle for 172 days, Ludwig was informed that a secret council had declared him unfit to rule due to mental instability and he was removed to the family residence in Munich. Two days later, he was found dead in a nearby lake along with the psychitrist that found him unstable; the circumstances of his death are still a mystery, and it is still debated as to whether it was a suicide or a murder that caused his death. Construction on Neuschwanstein halted with his death.

The dream castle, Neuschwanstein, has served as the basis for various 20th century fantasy castles, including Cinderella's castle at Disney World. Built in the style of a medieval castle, we were able to take an amazing tour through it. One of the more impressive rooms was the throne room. Equipped with one of the best views in the entire castle, this huge two story room had a 2000 pound chandelier shaped in the style of a 13th century crown and inset with colored glass. The floor itself was an impressive mosaic that represented all the creatures of the earth (surely some symbolism in that the king was meant to walk over them) and took four and a half years to make. Though the throne itself was never constructed, the paintings on the wall behind where the king would have sat included the 12 apostles, sitting just lower than the king, the 6 revered kings of history, higher than the king, and then Jesus Christ, the king of kings, above all. Another impressive room was the king's bedroom. With paintings around the walls teling the story of the King's favorite Wagnerian opera "Tristan & Isolde", all of the furniture in the room features highly detailed wood carving that took 12 of the most skilled wood carvers 3 years to complete. The kings bed itself was topped by an extensive array of imitation church steeples, and the kings wash basin featured running water that was pumped in by natural pressure from a mountain stream. Interestingly enough, the King even included a small grotto inside Neuschwanstein in the style of the artificial cave at Linderhof. The largest room in the castle, however, was the Singer's Hall, where the King could sit and enjoy his favorite operas performed for his own enjoyment. Sadly, however, the King never got to actually use the venue, as it was completed only two days before he was removed from power.

We left Neuschwanstein feeling impressed, but tired from a cloudy, windy and somewhat rainy day. We went in search of our hotel in Schwangau, which turned out to be a quaint cottage that had a fantastic view of the mountains and the best accomodations we had yet had. In addition, the first floor of the hotel was a restaurant, so we had a very fulfilling Bavarian-style meal and settled down for the night.

Day Two In Salzburg

We woke up this morning fairly early, because we had a scheduled tour. We went through the cornily named 'Bob's Special Tours' company and booked the 'Sound of Music Tour', and they picked us up at 9:00am, bright and early.

We were ushered into a mini-bus driven by our guide, Rosa-Marie, who filled us in little details about Salzburg that we had no idea about when we were poking around yesterday. She took us around to see many of the main sights of Salzburg, including Mozart's residence and several of the fountains we had seen the other day. We also got to see several of the sights around Salzburg that were either actual locations filmed in the Sound of Music, or were replicated in Hollywood but based on a Salzburg location. After touring for about an hour around various locations in Salzburg, we headed out to the Austrian countryside to visit several villages that were on the edges of some beautiful mountain-set lakes. Some of the actual locations we got to see included the Von Trapp's real life house, the house on which the back of the family house in the movie was based on, and the actual gazebo used in filming some of the critical scenes in the movie, including the song 'You are 16, going on 17'. All in all, the tour took three or four hours, but it was completely worth it, introducing us to a lot of the countryside that we otherwise would not have gotten to see.

After we got off the bus, we went and toured Mozart's residence. There isn't a whole lot of detail to talk about in that house, as it mostly just was displays of his writings and some of his handwritten music. The most interesting part was seeing the actual instruments owned by Mozart.

After getting a bite to eat, we decided that we would head up to the fortress that towered over Salzburg. On the way, we passed by a graveyard and catacombs that we had kind of been looking for yesterday, and we stopped to explore those a little bit. Given that the castle was so far up, Mom and Dad decided to take the lift up the mountain to the castle and let the kids walk. It wasn't that difficult of a walk, but it took a while to get up to the top. Once we had reached the top, we met up and discovered that we had been rewarded for our ambitiousness in scaling the castle mountain: there was an unparalleled view of the entire city and surrounding countryside, including the Untersberg, a massive peak only 16km away from the city and towering nearly 2km above the surrounding countryside. However, a foreboding cloud hung above the Untersberg, and a sheet of rain could clearly be seen moving rapidly across the intervening plain. We decided to head back down and get to the car as quickly as possible, but we ended up seeking shelter from the rain in one of the many shops carved into the mountain side.

Once we finally got the the car, the rest of the day went very quickly. We drove to Munich, got settled into our hotel, which is very nice and housed in a renovated mansion, and ate dinner at a small Italian eatery where the menu was entirely in German. However, the restaurant was quite delicious and the atmosphere was enchanting. Tomorrow, since Dachau is (unexpectedly) closed on Mondays, we will head to Neuschwanstein Castle in the south.

To Salzburg

We rose early in the morning to try and get an early start on our drive to Salzburg, Austria. It was going to be a 5 to 6 hour drive, so we left around 9am and hopped right on the autobahn. It was a fairly uneventful trip, but there was a very obvious highlight: about 45 minutes past Munich we encouered some traffic. While in traffic, we came over a hill and caught our first, distant view of the Alps. As we drew closer to Salzburg, the mountains kept growing, culminating in a beautiful towering peak that was capped in snow.

We arrived in a very busy Salzburg without fanfare, having very much enjoyed driving along the northern Alpine border. We directed the GPS to guide us to our hotel, and it did its very best, but ultimately failed. We searched for our hotel for quite a long time, driving around the Old City Center of Salzburg an embarassing amount of time before finally asking at a tourist center and finding that it was nestled away in a little back alley in the Old City, away from the hustle and bustle but close by all the sights and sounds that we wanted to experience. Though the hotel itself was small and the stone staircase was rather unpromising, our room was a nice suite with a beautiful view, superb location, and perfectly acceptable accomodations.

After bringing our luggage in to the room, we moved our car to a parking lot about 10 minute's walk from our hotel; as our hotel was in the Old City, there was no overnight parking nearby. We then proceeded to try and make up for lost time and get some of our walking tour of Salzburg in before dinner. By this time it was around 4:30pm, and some shops had already started to close up. We finally wandered our way in to the Kapitelplatz (completely by accident) and pulled out our trusty Rick Steves'.

After marveling at the beauty of the Kapitelplatz and its view of the Fortress (which, we decided, we would visit tomorrow), we headed in through a series of arches to the Domplatz, which served as the courtyard for the absolutely gorgeous Salzburg Cathedral. Walking into the Cathedral was like walking into a piece of history; consecrated in 1628, this Cathedral was one of the first Baroque buildings north of the Alps. It was commissioned by a greedy prince-archbishop who wanted to turn Salzburg into the Rome of the north, and was only stopped by the existence of a modest cathedral in the center of town. When that cathedral was destroyed, he was more than happy to built a magnificent new one in its place. We were able to see the ruins of the cathedral in the crypt below the church, where several archbishops are buried as well. AS a side note, Mozart himself served as the organist at this cathedral for two years. It will be hard for any Cathedral to top the Salzburg cathedral in its size and splendor, at least on this trip.

We visited two more plazas after exiting the cathedral: the Residenzplatz, with a fountain of Triton that mirrors a similar fountain in Rome, and the Mozartplatz, overlooked by a an 8th century church and centered around a statue of Mozart. It was amazing, walking through the plazas and knowing that people had been walking them for centurys; even Mozart himself had once strode across these uneven bricks.

We finished up the day with a scrumptious meal at Saran Essbar, an international cuisine restaurant tucked away just a block off Mozartplatz. We decided to have traditional Austrian cusine, and so we shared a plate of Schnitzel and a plate of gulash between the five of us, after which we indulged in some apple strudel and some specialty pancakes.