On Friday, we got up and caught the train out of Munich to
the town of Fussen because we were visiting King Ludwig II’s fairy tale
castle: Neuschwanstein. On an excitement scale of 1-10, I was at about
a 50. My dad visited this castle years
ago and took a picture of it which was then framed and hung up at the bottom of
the stairs in our house. I saw this
place almost every day of my life growing up and I was finally going
there!
The train ride to Fussen was beautiful, especially as the
Alps began to come into view. Once in
Fussen, we followed a tour guide (a safe bet, most of the time) to find the
busses that would take us to the small village of Hohenschwangau.
Hohenschwangau has not one, but two castles in its
sights. The first is Schloss Hohenschwangau. This castle was the childhood residence of
King Ludwig II. It was built by his
father, King Maximilian II in 1837 and was used as the summer hunting residence
for him and his family. Ludwig turned
out to be quite the outdoorsy type and once his father died, he lived in this
castle permanently until his own castle, Neuschwanstein (located just a couple
of mountains over), was livable.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to Hohenschwangau early enough
to go through the smaller castle, but we did visit the gardens and take in the
view of the nearby lake, Alpsee. We then
began walking over to Neuschwanstein, which only takes about 35 minutes.
As we trekked up the mountain road, my excitement was
building. I was also hot. I was the only person I saw carrying my coat
up the mountain rather than wearing it.
In my defense I was wearing a really warm sweater underneath.
We reached the top and got our first look at the
front of the castle and it was amazing!
It’s exactly what everyone pictures in their heads when you say, “castle:” Big and white with lots of turrets. King Ludwig was a fan of “castle
romanticism.” He wanted a castle that
stood as a monument to medieval culture and kingship. In other words, he liked the style for the
same reason we do: It’s a romantic
reminder of the past.
Construction began in 1869 and ended when King Ludwig died
in 1892. The castle was (and still is)
unfinished. However, the finished parts
are amazing. I was a little worried that
the inside would be disappointing compared to the outside… but it wasn’t. Ludwig loved the operas of Richard Wagner
(dum dum did e dum dum, dum did e dum dum…) and he designed the inside of the
castle to showcase several different operas including Lohengrin, Tannhauser,
Tristan and Isolde, Der Ring des Nibelegen, and the Grail King (sorry, the
brochure I picked up only lists them in German, and I don’t feel like
translating them). No pictures are
allowed inside, but click this link
for what I saw.
It was spectacular and now I want to live there.
Before our tour of the inside, we ran (quickly walked) to Marienbrucke
(Marie's Bridge) to take some pictures.
The sign said it would take 30 minutes to walk there. Maybe if you have 6 toddlers hanging on your
arms. We were there in 8. We were in a hurry though, since our tour was
starting soon, so we did leave the average person in the dust.
Marienbrucke was built in 1866 by King Ludwig over a gorge
overlooking the castle. In spite of the
fact that it is 90 meters in the air, I was so excited, I didn’t even care. We took our pictures and were back in plenty
of time for our castle tour.
Sadly, King Ludwig never got to finish his castle. He pretty much bankrupted Bavaria with all
his spending on it and in 1886, he was declared insane. Although his brother Otto was insane, Ludwig
probably was not. It was just a convenient
way to get rid of him without a lot of questions. Shortly after being removed as King (and
removed from his castle), Ludwig and the doctor he was with were found dead in
Lake Starnberg (a few hours away from Neuschwanstein) in waist-high water. The doctor apparently had injuries to his
head and shoulders, which makes the deaths look incredibly suspicious. Ironically, Bavaria is now the richest state
in Germany, partially due to Ludwig’s castle and patronism of the arts.
After our tour, we walked back down the hill, caught the bus
back to Fussen and the 6:05 train to Munich.
We ate some McDonalds for dinner and EL and SG were off to Bad Tolz for
some hiking. I didn’t join them because
I tweaked my knee on the stairs the week before and didn’t see a lot of downhill
trekking as the best thing for it. So,
they were off and I was on my own for the next two days in Munich.
