While it seems that Bavarian towns have a limited range of food ingredients, they have a large range of castles. Say what you like about Bavarian king Ludwig II - whether he was crazy, disenchanted with his newly downgraded role in a constitutional monarchy, or an architectural visionary - one thing everyone agrees on is that his castles were fantastic and fantastical. It's no wonder that his most famous castle - Neuschwanstein - was the inspiration for the Disney castle.
We visited three of his castles and each one was amazing in its own way. When the Government stopped him using public money he spent his family's sizable fortune and then still went into debt building his dreams. The state had to bail him out financially. It seems that just like Europe today, he didn't like the austerity measures that went with the bailout so he kept spending. In one castle, he could even sit in his bedroom and look out the window towards a yonder hill where another was being built.
After bailing him out a second time, the state decided it had to do something more, well, 'permanent'. A physician declared he was mentally ill (perhaps he was). Then one night he and his personal physician went for a walk by the lake and both turned up dead the next morning. To this day, it remains a mystery. Ironically, those same castles that drove Ludwig, and probably the state of Bavaria, into debt are now raking in a lot of money and bringing a continuous flow of tourist dollars to the local economy. And we were happy to play our part to experience the lavish magnificence of King Ludwig's legacy.
If the castles are the gems of Bavaria, then the countryside is its crown. It was stunning: crystal clear lakes, lush green forests, and a few mountains thrown in for good measure. We love Australia, and it is special in its own way, but there is a reason fairytale scenery like this captures the imaginations of so many story tellers. If you google 'Neuschwanstein images' you will see that the countryside looks incredible in all different seasons. (in fact, we've included a pic of the castle in winter - clearly we didn't take that one!)
Castle Linderhof was inspired by the Palace of Versailles in France (see our Paris blog post) because Ludwig II had a fascination with the all-powerful king Louis XIV of France who titled himself the 'Sun King'. Having had the opportunity to visit both we can confidently say that Versailles was much bigger and its vast estate helped create its splendor. Linderhof, on the other hand, was much smaller but its stunning interior was on a whole other level. Amanda couldn't believe that such a perfectly decorated interior truly existed in reality.
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Sourced online as no photos were permitted
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It was Ludwig's personal retreat when he wanted to escape from public view (which apparently was quite often). There was gold plating, fancy metal work and embroidery everywhere. In the centuries that elapsed between the building of France's Versailles and Bavaria's Linderhof, the quality and clarity of mirrors improved dramatically and this made a significant difference to the shininess and sense of splendor inside castle Linderhof. In true Ludwig style, he also had a few other facilities built on the castle grounds including a Persian style room where he would sit while servants dressed in Persian attire would read to him and smoke hooker pipes. He also built himself a cave and had it decked out with different colored lights, heating for the water (so he could swim and bathe in it), and everything a king needs to watch and experience Opera. Yes, it was his Opera cave where people would perform his favourite Richard Wagner operas. I guess the guy knew what he liked...
Ok, enough gushing.
The three castles we visited were in Bavaria, way down south in Germany, just before you climb the alps and enter Austria. They are also at the southern end of the Romantic Road, which is a picturesque (but not always well sign posted) tourist drive through part of Germany. It is dotted with medieval towns, forts, and old churches. We only had a few days scheduled for this part of the world so we didn't see it all, but we enjoyed what we saw.
For example, medieval town, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, has a hilarious 'night watchman' tour led by an eccentric dressed-up character. We followed him around the town listening to his entertaining tales of life in times past. He emphasized that the 'good old days' were NOT good! With rats spreading disease, rubbish stinking to high heaven in the streets, and attacking armies to fend off, life wasn't as nice as we might think it was.
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The world famous night watchman!
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Drinking fountain
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Despite being well fortified with moats, natural cliffs and sturdy walls, the town was devastated in the 30 years war because some general was marching his army of 40,000 to sack another town just because he could (see comments in previous posts re: nature of the 30 years war) - when it started raining very heavily. Unable to get his carts through the heavy mud, he turned to nearby Rothenburg and 'asked' for help. Now pause for a moment to do the math - a 40,000 strong army being fed by a city of 20,000 indefinitely... Fearing possible starvation and other horrors, the people 'politely declined'.
A week or so in and the fortifications were still working - many of the army had died but none of the citizens had...until one guy went into the ammunitions room at night with his night candle and accidentally blew a gigantic hole in the wall. He was the first from the town to die, along with an unfortunate soul who was standing just outside the door. Shortly after, that was the end of progress in Rothenburg for a few centuries, which has thankfully preserved its old buildings and charm. It is only now starting to revive again, courtesy of tourism and the intervention of an American general during the second world war...but that's another story.
There was a moment while we were eating dinner in Rothenburg that I will never forget. We were eating our pork, cabbage and potato in some form and Amanda was polishing off the biggest pork knuckle I've ever seen, when I wearily said, 'I wonder what the time is'. Looking around in the direction of the waiter, the usually dainty and proper Amanda was holding the pork knuckle in one hand and looking somewhat Viking-ish, as she replied very matter of factly: 'time for a beer'.
Aah, nothing like Bavaria to bring out the inner beer and pork lover in everyone.
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Rothenburg town square
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Dinkelsbuhl - we think...
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Just to backtrack a bit, getting from Switzerland to the Romantic Road was an experience in itself. Leaving our relatives in Switzerland we took a detour through the Black Forrest (home of the cuckoo clock) where we pulled over and wandered through the forrest, foraging for the delicious and abundant small wild blueberries growing like a carpet across the forest floor. After remembering we had a long drive ahead of us that even the autobahn couldn't reduce to under 6 hours, we pulled ourselves away from this natural feast, taking our bounty with us and making mental notes to wash before eating... just in case.
Motoring through the Black Forrest towards the autobahn we went through a small town and noticed a bakery. Immediately I felt a gut instinct to pull over and investigate. Maybe I was planning ahead for lunch, maybe the foraging had made me peckish, or maybe I just knew... But once inside we found an Eden of German cakes. Carrot cake, chocolate cake, cheesecake (Amanda's favourite), lemon meringue pie, apple pie, black forest cake (naturally) and more. When we saw the ridiculously cheap prices and the massive over-sized slices, we decided right then and there to have morning tea. Three times. What's that saying, 'make hay while the sun shines?'. Mmmm, sooo good.
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Oberammergau
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Dirndl dress shop
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When we finally made it to the autobahn we opened up our little 6 speed, 3 door, diesel pocket-rocket to see what it could do... kind of. For those that know me I have a keenly developed sense of self preservation, so we worked our way up. We hit 140km/h pretty quickly and found that our chariot seemed to settle in quite well between 140-145km/h... which worked well for us. Of course, watching the time tick over and noticing how far it was to our destination (it seemed like google maps significantly underestimated driving time), and growing more comfortable with the speed and reactions time required, I inched it up a little more and kept pushing through 150km/h... 155... 160... 165...what was that rattle and shake? Hmm, so I backed off down to 160km/h. It was at this stage that the true craziness of autobahn drivers hit me - thankfully, not literally. While traveling at 160km/h, cars were passing us. I don't just mean passing, I mean whizzing past us like we were an old lady driving a Volvo on a car insurance advertisement! They must have been going at least twice our speed. Again, you can do the math. On several occasions we had to break rapidly for traffic. Yet, somehow the autobahn / race way seems to work.
[Amanda: I thought that driving at the higher speeds would be fun, but once you are driving THAT fast for a lengthy time it starts to get a bit stressful, particularly with crazy-fast germans appearing behind you faster than you can blink while you are trying to take over someone else. After several minutes had ticked by I thought to myself 'I don't want to play this game anymore'! When we would finish our respective turns at driving we would emerge with muscles tense and our nervous system kind-of-close to shut down. Yeah, we're total newbies at this.]
We were a couple of hours later than planned when the GPS informed us we had 'arrived at our destination'. We peered around and saw a field and two houses... ... something wasn't right.
So after doing a lap or two of the street, we looked at our hotel booking again and discovered that it was in fact in Augsburg Germany, not to be confused with Augsberg Germany, ('e' not 'u' in 'berg') which is where the GPS had faithfully taken us. When we re-entered the correct name we discovered that it was in fact about 2 hours back in the general direction from which we had just come...!! We noticed that Prague was only 3 hours or so away and boy were we tempted to go back there instead!
But we didn't. We stuck to the plan. And back on the autobahn we went. I figured it wouldn't take the full 2 hours because the GPS seemed to calculate the time based on traveling about 130/140 km/h. I knew we could go at least 150 km/h as long as I was concentrating properly.
The autobahn had other ideas. Less than 30 minutes into our trip we hit traffic (roadworks). So, there we were late for our accommodation, growing more tired by the hour, traveling 30 km/h on the autobahn.
Of mice and men eh?
It took so long that I'm ashamed to say I succumbed and ate McDonalds at a highway service station at about 9pm. I was so hungry I needed food and since I couldn't find any of that, I ate Maccas instead.
We eventually found our way to Augsburg where, mercifully, the hotel reception was still open. As an added bonus it also had a fancy sauna and jacuzzi. So after a mostly fast, but long, day on the autobahn, we slowed things down a little to relax our frayed nerves.
The next day we discovered that there was not that much to see in Augsburg anyway. It's a university town and used to be one of the main Bavarian centers for gold and silver work but it's glory has faded a little.
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The one classic Augsburg tourist shot (again, sourced online)
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We didn't mind too much though because for us it was always just a gateway to the Romantic Road tourist drive, which would take us through Bavaria to a series of medieval walled cities, fortresses, and castles.
And yes, it was romantic - except for the roadworks mentioned above and the bit where I got food poisoning so Amanda ended up driving on the autobahn. At one stage while she was driving, Amanda asked me how fast I had driven. I refused to answer on the grounds that I figured she would try to beat it and I really didn't think it was safe. Despite my silence, I later noticed her inching the speedometer to 170km/h! So, it's official, Amanda drove faster than I did on autobahn - just. But what do I care, I got to go to Bavaria; see amazing castles; drive on a romantic road; and eat pork, cabbage and potato.
J.
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