In which I spend my Saturday afternoon very enjoyably and in a much less depressing manner than my Saturday morning.
So needless to say I was in need of a good cheering up after Dachau. I headed towards Schloss Nymphenburg. I had to switch from the S bahn to the tram at the railway station anyway so I stopped there for some lunch. Oh my gosh. I had this sausage wrapped in bacon with some melted cheese, on a roll. Oh my gosh. I can not begin to describe the level of deliciousness involved here. Juicy, crispy, fatty, greasy, cheesy meaty heaven. Ahhhh. If I get a choice about my last meal, that is what I want.
Schloss Nymphenburg is a nice quiet little pick me up. I was rather tired to go gallivanting all over the grounds as I perhaps would have under normal circumstances, but I did do the main castle. It was sort of interesting, as it was just a summer home for the Bavarian rulers. I mean, what better way to relieve the stress of living in an ornate palace in the city than by slipping off to a slightly smaller ornate palace on the outskirts of town? Anyway, it did have one rather unique feature: the Gallery of Beauties. King Ludwig I had the court painter do a collection of 36 portraits of beautiful young women, from a variety of social classes. All the way from a shoemaker's daughter to his own daughter. (Also included are his two mistresses). He wanted them painted in such a way that you could not tell of what social class they were. So you couldn't be distracted either by their rags or their riches. All you were to see was how beautiful they are. People came from all over Europe to see his Gallery.*Side note: this must have been like getting a fashion shoot. If a girl got picked, she came to the palace, got completely glam-ed up, and when they were done she got to keep the dress as a gift. People thought he was great for glorifying virtuous female beauty, but I bet his wife had a different view.
When I got done here, I took the metro to the Konigsplatz stop. It's supposed to have some really awesome Grecian looking museums and a nice little green space in the middle. I wouldn't know; the whole thing was blocked off for some event. Don't these people know better than to inconvenience me? Well, I then went over to the Englisch Garden. I don't know what's particularly english about it; a more accurate name might be "Large Park of No Distinguishable Nationality", but that probably wouldn't attract as many people. I walked around a lot. It's a very pleasant park, despite its lack of nationality. There's a chinese pagoda that you sort of have to see while you're there and it happens to have a nice out door cafe-type set up next to it. And there happened to be a traditional band in lederhosen playing on the pagoda, so I happened to decide to have dinner there. It was fun. I had knodel, which I pronounce "kuh-noodle", even though I know that's not remotely close to right, and a ginormous pretzel. Huge. And delicious. A very good meal, with good music. After dinner I walked some more and then headed back to the train station.
The ride home was pleasantly uneventful. The people in my compartment were very nice and no one snored. We arrived back about 45 minutes late, so I missed the direct from Koln to Paderborn and had to take one switching in Hamm. So I got back a bit later Sunday morning than planned, but it was all good. It's not like I had anything planned. Besides sleeping of course.
6/29/11
Munich Weekend Part 3a
Dachau
Saturday morning I got up and went to Dachau. The Dachau concentration camp is located about 30 minutes outside the city center. You can get a Munich XXL ticket which will cover you for any and all U bahn and S bahn for the day, as well as buses and trams. Once you're there it's free to get in, 50 cents for a map/brochure.
It's not an overly crowded sort of place, although there are plenty of tour groups (which you know annoy the daylights out of me because they're so difficult to get around and they're always standing in front of some sign you want to read).
Dachau was one of the earliest concentration camps and one of only a handful to run throughout all 12 years. It was also the model for many other concentration camps, not only in set up, but also in "management style". SS soldiers were trained there and then sent to other concentration camps to teach the other SS soldiers the "Dachau spirit" or how to properly brutalize, humiliate, and torture the prisoners. This wasn't an "extermination camp" per se, but that's not to say people didn't die here or that there weren't murders. Dachau was more a hub for sending prisoners to other camps, especially in the later years. Those who were fit to work were sent on to be slave labor; those who were not were either retained in Dachau or sent to an extermination camp. Dachau did have a gas chamber built but it was never used. Capital punishment in Dachau was usually in the form of shooting or hanging. The hanging took place in the crematorium, right in front of the incinerators. Originally there was just one incinerator for burning the bodies of those who were murdered, committed suicide, or died of illness, malnutrition, or sheer exhaustion. The number dying grew to the point that they built a larger crematorium just outside the walls of the camp with five incinerators and two large rooms for holding the bodies. A shortage of coal forced them to switch to mass graves towards the end of the war. This was also one of the first places were medical experiments were performed on prisoners.
Contrary to pop culture, the concentration camp prisoners were not just Jewish. Dachau was only one third Jewish, with the rest being anyone from political opponents, royalty, gays, physically/mentally disabled people, Italians, Polish people, east europian minority groups, and even clergy. At one point there were over 2000 members of the clergy imprisoned there. Anyone who spoke out against the Nazis or the SS would also have been part of the group.
I have to admit, I cried. I cried through the museum, I cried in the bunk house, and I cried at the crematorium. At one point I had to sit down on a bench and just cry for a bit. It's terrible. Knowing the depravity that went on here. The torture these people were subjected to. The blind brutality. The total utter lack of humanity. When the American soldiers came to liberate the camp, they couldn't believe it. They were in shock that this could ever happen. The prisoners were out there cheering and the Americans just stood there staring because they didn't know what to do or to say. They thought it was just a camp for prisoners of war; they didn't know how bad it was. People have done some really cruel things to each other of the course of history. The hells we have created are shocking, but this has got to go near the top.
How could this happen? The German people were in a hell of their own following the first world war. They were angry, humiliated, scared, frustrated, and jealous, and these are strong emotions. Throw in a devastating economic depression, a shaky new government, a demeaning military defeat, and a widespread fear of the modern world and you've got a recipe for disaster. Fear is probably the key here. Fear destroys people, and they were afraid. Afraid that the world they knew was never coming back. Afraid of people who didn't want that world back. Afraid of changes that wouldn't put them at the top of the ladder anymore. Afraid of a world where people have different beliefs, lifestyles, and goals, that don't necessarily coincide with their own. So when someone stood up and pointed a finger at a culprit, at a scapegoat, people were ready and willing to follow.
Don't think this couldn't happen here too. The US walked down that road too. After Pearl Harbor the US government started forcing Japanese Americans, many of them US citizens, to come to internment camps to prevent them from spying. Although far fewer people were affected, the conditions were not nearly as depraved, and there were no mass murders, we walked that same road. We imprisoned perfectly innocent people without trial and held them responsible for a tragedy they had no part of. Luckily we stopped before things got any worse.
What if today the US government announced a new plan for dealing with illegal immigration? What if they proposed to gather up illegal immigrants and instead of deporting them, sent them to "Fair Deal Facilities" where they could work off their tax debt and work towards becoming a legal American citizen? What if political opponents to the idea suddenly disappeared, supposedly to work on a special project in a secret location? What if after the illegal immigrants, the government started clearing out the ghettos of major cities, saying that they were altering the welfare program to include skill training in the Facilities? What if news reporters got to tour the new immaculately clean Facilities, and you could see what good conditions there were, and how happy the people seemed? What if the newspapers had interviews with former drug dealers saying how they were better off there than at home? What if well-known scientists published studies on the effectiveness of such programs at imbuing a sense of responsibility and good work ethic? Would anyone really try to stop it? How many Americans would really find fault with such a program? After all, it's not like they're taking "good" people. It's just the lazy freeloaders and bums who are lucky to not be in jail. It's not like they're being treated badly. Look, that room's clean as a whistle. This is good for them. We'll be a better country for it.
Have caution, because we could do it too. We are just as capable as they. Let's hope that the memorial sites like Dachau have made us a little wiser. "Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth" ~FDR, 1939
Saturday morning I got up and went to Dachau. The Dachau concentration camp is located about 30 minutes outside the city center. You can get a Munich XXL ticket which will cover you for any and all U bahn and S bahn for the day, as well as buses and trams. Once you're there it's free to get in, 50 cents for a map/brochure.
It's not an overly crowded sort of place, although there are plenty of tour groups (which you know annoy the daylights out of me because they're so difficult to get around and they're always standing in front of some sign you want to read).
Dachau was one of the earliest concentration camps and one of only a handful to run throughout all 12 years. It was also the model for many other concentration camps, not only in set up, but also in "management style". SS soldiers were trained there and then sent to other concentration camps to teach the other SS soldiers the "Dachau spirit" or how to properly brutalize, humiliate, and torture the prisoners. This wasn't an "extermination camp" per se, but that's not to say people didn't die here or that there weren't murders. Dachau was more a hub for sending prisoners to other camps, especially in the later years. Those who were fit to work were sent on to be slave labor; those who were not were either retained in Dachau or sent to an extermination camp. Dachau did have a gas chamber built but it was never used. Capital punishment in Dachau was usually in the form of shooting or hanging. The hanging took place in the crematorium, right in front of the incinerators. Originally there was just one incinerator for burning the bodies of those who were murdered, committed suicide, or died of illness, malnutrition, or sheer exhaustion. The number dying grew to the point that they built a larger crematorium just outside the walls of the camp with five incinerators and two large rooms for holding the bodies. A shortage of coal forced them to switch to mass graves towards the end of the war. This was also one of the first places were medical experiments were performed on prisoners.
Contrary to pop culture, the concentration camp prisoners were not just Jewish. Dachau was only one third Jewish, with the rest being anyone from political opponents, royalty, gays, physically/mentally disabled people, Italians, Polish people, east europian minority groups, and even clergy. At one point there were over 2000 members of the clergy imprisoned there. Anyone who spoke out against the Nazis or the SS would also have been part of the group.
I have to admit, I cried. I cried through the museum, I cried in the bunk house, and I cried at the crematorium. At one point I had to sit down on a bench and just cry for a bit. It's terrible. Knowing the depravity that went on here. The torture these people were subjected to. The blind brutality. The total utter lack of humanity. When the American soldiers came to liberate the camp, they couldn't believe it. They were in shock that this could ever happen. The prisoners were out there cheering and the Americans just stood there staring because they didn't know what to do or to say. They thought it was just a camp for prisoners of war; they didn't know how bad it was. People have done some really cruel things to each other of the course of history. The hells we have created are shocking, but this has got to go near the top.
How could this happen? The German people were in a hell of their own following the first world war. They were angry, humiliated, scared, frustrated, and jealous, and these are strong emotions. Throw in a devastating economic depression, a shaky new government, a demeaning military defeat, and a widespread fear of the modern world and you've got a recipe for disaster. Fear is probably the key here. Fear destroys people, and they were afraid. Afraid that the world they knew was never coming back. Afraid of people who didn't want that world back. Afraid of changes that wouldn't put them at the top of the ladder anymore. Afraid of a world where people have different beliefs, lifestyles, and goals, that don't necessarily coincide with their own. So when someone stood up and pointed a finger at a culprit, at a scapegoat, people were ready and willing to follow.
Don't think this couldn't happen here too. The US walked down that road too. After Pearl Harbor the US government started forcing Japanese Americans, many of them US citizens, to come to internment camps to prevent them from spying. Although far fewer people were affected, the conditions were not nearly as depraved, and there were no mass murders, we walked that same road. We imprisoned perfectly innocent people without trial and held them responsible for a tragedy they had no part of. Luckily we stopped before things got any worse.
What if today the US government announced a new plan for dealing with illegal immigration? What if they proposed to gather up illegal immigrants and instead of deporting them, sent them to "Fair Deal Facilities" where they could work off their tax debt and work towards becoming a legal American citizen? What if political opponents to the idea suddenly disappeared, supposedly to work on a special project in a secret location? What if after the illegal immigrants, the government started clearing out the ghettos of major cities, saying that they were altering the welfare program to include skill training in the Facilities? What if news reporters got to tour the new immaculately clean Facilities, and you could see what good conditions there were, and how happy the people seemed? What if the newspapers had interviews with former drug dealers saying how they were better off there than at home? What if well-known scientists published studies on the effectiveness of such programs at imbuing a sense of responsibility and good work ethic? Would anyone really try to stop it? How many Americans would really find fault with such a program? After all, it's not like they're taking "good" people. It's just the lazy freeloaders and bums who are lucky to not be in jail. It's not like they're being treated badly. Look, that room's clean as a whistle. This is good for them. We'll be a better country for it.
Have caution, because we could do it too. We are just as capable as they. Let's hope that the memorial sites like Dachau have made us a little wiser. "Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth" ~FDR, 1939
Munich Weekend Part 2
In which I go to Linderhof
I spent a good 80% of Friday at Linderhof and traveling to and from it. It's a healthy 2 and a half hours from Munich, but I really wanted to go. I was not disappointed. My favorite Bavarian king Ludwig II built it as a sort of mountain retreat. A royal hunting lodge was already here when Ludwig started making plans to expand it. He wanted to build his Versailles here, but the grounds are too hilly for the type of gardens he wanted and the space just wasn't big enough. Hence the relocation of that project to Herrenchiemsee. This castle (along with accompanying buidings) is the smallest, the most quickly built, and the only one he finished. He spent most of the last 8 years of his life here. It was a very special place for him and he never had visitors there. He did have rooms designed for Sophie's use for when they got married, but as you know that didn't really work out.
It's a stunning palace. Gold everything, tapestries everywhere...luxurious is the key word for every inch of the place. One tapestry of the Bavarian coat of arms uses a special technique with hundreds of stitches woven per square centimeter. It took a craftsman 4 years to hand stitch/weave/make the whole thing. Ludwig was also apparently so shy in his later years even around his servants that he had a "magic table" installed in his dining room. It could be lowered by means of a hand-cranked elevator to the servants' area below where the table would be set and loaded with food before being raised back up. Magic!
The grounds are especially worth a going-over. There's the "grotto": an artificial cave with a swan boat floating in a man-made "underground lake", with an awesome lighting system. Then there's the Moorish and Moroccan houses, which are small cottages done up in the respective styles. He has a hunting lodge that I'm pretty sure was decorated by Gaston, and a rustic little lakeside chapel. My favorite thing about this castle is how personal it felt. Ludwig (and his servants) was the only one to ever live here, or come here even. This wasn't for show or impressing visiting royalty or even hosting operas; it was just for him.
After getting back to Munich I did a little more sightseeing. I had dinner at the Hofbrauhaus. It's certainly an experience, but I didn't like it. I suppose that's not surprising. A person who doesn't like beer is probably not likely to enjoy a beer hall. It was loud, overcrowded, and the service was awful. My kaes spaetzle (German mac n cheese) was good though. I went and saw the Olympic Park which I loved. I'm a big fan of the Olympics, and a life goal of mine is to go someday. I also got off the subway to take a picture of their soccer arena, but it wasn't very exciting.
And that was the end of day 2.
I spent a good 80% of Friday at Linderhof and traveling to and from it. It's a healthy 2 and a half hours from Munich, but I really wanted to go. I was not disappointed. My favorite Bavarian king Ludwig II built it as a sort of mountain retreat. A royal hunting lodge was already here when Ludwig started making plans to expand it. He wanted to build his Versailles here, but the grounds are too hilly for the type of gardens he wanted and the space just wasn't big enough. Hence the relocation of that project to Herrenchiemsee. This castle (along with accompanying buidings) is the smallest, the most quickly built, and the only one he finished. He spent most of the last 8 years of his life here. It was a very special place for him and he never had visitors there. He did have rooms designed for Sophie's use for when they got married, but as you know that didn't really work out.
It's a stunning palace. Gold everything, tapestries everywhere...luxurious is the key word for every inch of the place. One tapestry of the Bavarian coat of arms uses a special technique with hundreds of stitches woven per square centimeter. It took a craftsman 4 years to hand stitch/weave/make the whole thing. Ludwig was also apparently so shy in his later years even around his servants that he had a "magic table" installed in his dining room. It could be lowered by means of a hand-cranked elevator to the servants' area below where the table would be set and loaded with food before being raised back up. Magic!
The grounds are especially worth a going-over. There's the "grotto": an artificial cave with a swan boat floating in a man-made "underground lake", with an awesome lighting system. Then there's the Moorish and Moroccan houses, which are small cottages done up in the respective styles. He has a hunting lodge that I'm pretty sure was decorated by Gaston, and a rustic little lakeside chapel. My favorite thing about this castle is how personal it felt. Ludwig (and his servants) was the only one to ever live here, or come here even. This wasn't for show or impressing visiting royalty or even hosting operas; it was just for him.
After getting back to Munich I did a little more sightseeing. I had dinner at the Hofbrauhaus. It's certainly an experience, but I didn't like it. I suppose that's not surprising. A person who doesn't like beer is probably not likely to enjoy a beer hall. It was loud, overcrowded, and the service was awful. My kaes spaetzle (German mac n cheese) was good though. I went and saw the Olympic Park which I loved. I'm a big fan of the Olympics, and a life goal of mine is to go someday. I also got off the subway to take a picture of their soccer arena, but it wasn't very exciting.
And that was the end of day 2.
Munich Weekend Part 1
In which I take a night train, see a palace, and get rather wet.
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This post as well as the subsequent posts marked "Munich Weekend" record my adventures during the Corpus Christi weekend. Corpus Christi is another June Catholic holiday which falls on a Thursday resulting in a four day weekend. (For real, we could have so many more days off if we weren't such sticklers about the separation of church and state). For those who don't know, Corpus Christi is a celebration of the sacrament of communion, started because a woman (now sainted) had visions of Christ telling her this needed to be a holiday. She thought she was crazy at first so she didn't tell anybody until about forty years later. Her priest told his bishop who told the pope, who was like OMG, why didn't I know about this, this is hereby a holiday. And now it's a holiday. It's sort of a "super-communion". At any rate, I got the day off so I went to Munich (or Munchen, depending on your level of German-ness) for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Due to the sheer length of these posts and the sloth-like procedure of photo uploading no pictures will be included. Alright, off we go.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I had such a miserable time last time I traveled by night, what with all the switches and waiting and not sleeping, that this time I decided to fork over the extra dough for the sleeper train. You have many options when it comes to sleeper trains ranging from a seat with a footrest to a private cabin. I went with the reasonably priced "couchette" model, which basically means you and five other stingy people are in bunk beds in the world's smallest compartment. The bed was perfectly "Jackie-size"; that is to say, I could stretch out and be comfortable, but most people would not fit. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of falling asleep on a train and waking up in a new city.
Upon arriving in Munich, I wandered around the station for a while looking for the right street to my hostel. The hostel by the way is very nice. Quite possibly the nicest so far. Easy Palace City Hostel. Best part? Literally 100 ft from a metro station (which if I had known from the beginning would have made it easier to locate the hostel).
I then set off for my day. My groupmates had told me that I needed to see the Deutsches Museum. At first I was thinking, Germany history? yawn, but it's actually a science and technology museum. Think Smithsonian, but more sciencey and minus all that life sciences nonsense (jk). It was nerdy heaven. Boats, airplanes, and astronautics, plus physics, lasers, and old scientific equipment. I've now seen one of the world's first vacuum chambers! (I know you don't care but stay with me). I was also the only in the room who knew what it was. This little british boy who couldn't have been more than 6 was like, "Daddy, what's that do?" and his father was like "I haven't got the foggiest idea" and I piped up with "It's a vacuum chamber; it sucks out all the air out of that glass part. If you put a marshmallow in there it'll shrivel up" (don't ask why I felt it necessary to include the information on the marshmallow). They were duly impressed and looked at me like "American weirdo". Anyway, the museum was great and it's so big you could easily spend several days there. My only disappointment was that the scientific chemistry section was closed for renovation. Phooey.
Next stop: Marienplatz. Famous Rathaus: check. Signature cathedral: check. Various important looking statues and buildings: check and check. I was starting to get rained on so I went in search of my favorite indoor activity: a giant palace. Munich just so happens to have one: the Munich Residenz. Be warned: this will take you hours. It is huge, and unlike a lot of royal abodes, you can see most of it. Travelers Tip: go in the afternoon. According to my audio guide, more rooms are open then for no apparent reason. I just lucked out. Due to intense damage in WWII (whoopsie) much of the palace is no longer completely original, but they've saved a lot of it and restored the rest to its former glory.
Bit of history for you. This is where the Bavarian royal court spent most of its time. The first King Maximillian did most of the expanding and building on to the palace, and it became known throughout Europe as a model of how the royal lived. Later King Ludwig I did more expanding. Our builder King Ludwig II probably spent a good bit of time here as well. Probably my favorite room was the banquet hall. Paintings all over the ceiling and the walls are lined with Roman/Grecian busts. The weirdest room (in any place I have ever visited to date) was the relics collection. Holy moly that is sooooo creepy. Normally, you go in a cathedral, there's a large sculpture/painting and an ornately decorated box with a sign saying shrine and relics of St. Someone Who Died. Oh no. These are sheltered versions of the old school relics. Ornate gold and glass and all that jazz is still there, but with these reliquaries you can see the relic. I'm talking femurs held in gold stands, mummified hands in glass boxes, a miniature glass chasse containing a mummified toddler and the bones of others (supposedly the victims of King Herod), and the skulls of John the Baptist (allegedly) and other saints sitting on velvet cushions. Creepy creepy creepy.
Several hours and almost a hundred decadent rooms later, I left the Residenz museum in a state of near nirvana. And promptly went over the moon when I walked into the Treasury. So Sparkly! My cup runneth over. My final stop in the Residenz complex was the Royal Theater/Opera house. It was pretty nice, but not as cool as the Palais Garnier in Paris. Thus really only a five minute stop for pictures.
By this point it was close to 4:30 and I was what you might call STARVING. I tried to find with no success before I hurried back to the Rathaus for the Glockenspiele (German for clock chiming). I had missed the earlier ones so I wanted to be super sure to be there for one at 5. I and some 50 other people stood in the rain staring up at figurines dancing on the Rathaus tower high above us while the bells chimed some nice folksy sounding music. I kept thinking I recognized the tune but was never able to put my finger on it. During the first song there's a wedding scene (Duke Wilhelm V according to wikipedia) with a joust and the second song has some people dancing (the internet says that some dudes went dancing through the streets of Munich so everybody would know the plague was over). Anyway the whole thing is pretty famous so naturally I had to see it and it was pretty entertaining. For dinner I had Bavarian white sausage. Not bad at all, but rather difficult to eat.
My last adventure of the day was going to the top of the St. Peter's church tower. Now there are several towers in the downtown Munich area willing to charge you a small fee to avail yourself of their city views. I chose this one because a) it was the cheapest and b) it was across the street from where I ate dinner. There is a catch: this one does not have an elevator. Just 306 steps to the top. Or so they tell me. I didn't count. It was worth the effort though. During my time up there, the church decided it was time to chime for evening mass. Being at the top of a bell tower while the bells gong somewhere beneath your feet is an exceptional feeling. I can't describe it except to say that your whole body is vibrating in tune with that bell tone. Eventually I'd had enough so I headed down and I was glad I started to leave before the bells stopped. On the stairway there were 3 little windows I had not noticed on the way up that looked into the bell room. This giant bell the size of an SUV (and weighing probably three times as much) was swinging back and forth as graceful as you please. I'll never forget how big it was or the ease with which it moved. Sometimes it's the unexpected little things that have the most profound effect.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This post as well as the subsequent posts marked "Munich Weekend" record my adventures during the Corpus Christi weekend. Corpus Christi is another June Catholic holiday which falls on a Thursday resulting in a four day weekend. (For real, we could have so many more days off if we weren't such sticklers about the separation of church and state). For those who don't know, Corpus Christi is a celebration of the sacrament of communion, started because a woman (now sainted) had visions of Christ telling her this needed to be a holiday. She thought she was crazy at first so she didn't tell anybody until about forty years later. Her priest told his bishop who told the pope, who was like OMG, why didn't I know about this, this is hereby a holiday. And now it's a holiday. It's sort of a "super-communion". At any rate, I got the day off so I went to Munich (or Munchen, depending on your level of German-ness) for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Due to the sheer length of these posts and the sloth-like procedure of photo uploading no pictures will be included. Alright, off we go.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I had such a miserable time last time I traveled by night, what with all the switches and waiting and not sleeping, that this time I decided to fork over the extra dough for the sleeper train. You have many options when it comes to sleeper trains ranging from a seat with a footrest to a private cabin. I went with the reasonably priced "couchette" model, which basically means you and five other stingy people are in bunk beds in the world's smallest compartment. The bed was perfectly "Jackie-size"; that is to say, I could stretch out and be comfortable, but most people would not fit. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of falling asleep on a train and waking up in a new city.
Upon arriving in Munich, I wandered around the station for a while looking for the right street to my hostel. The hostel by the way is very nice. Quite possibly the nicest so far. Easy Palace City Hostel. Best part? Literally 100 ft from a metro station (which if I had known from the beginning would have made it easier to locate the hostel).
I then set off for my day. My groupmates had told me that I needed to see the Deutsches Museum. At first I was thinking, Germany history? yawn, but it's actually a science and technology museum. Think Smithsonian, but more sciencey and minus all that life sciences nonsense (jk). It was nerdy heaven. Boats, airplanes, and astronautics, plus physics, lasers, and old scientific equipment. I've now seen one of the world's first vacuum chambers! (I know you don't care but stay with me). I was also the only in the room who knew what it was. This little british boy who couldn't have been more than 6 was like, "Daddy, what's that do?" and his father was like "I haven't got the foggiest idea" and I piped up with "It's a vacuum chamber; it sucks out all the air out of that glass part. If you put a marshmallow in there it'll shrivel up" (don't ask why I felt it necessary to include the information on the marshmallow). They were duly impressed and looked at me like "American weirdo". Anyway, the museum was great and it's so big you could easily spend several days there. My only disappointment was that the scientific chemistry section was closed for renovation. Phooey.
Next stop: Marienplatz. Famous Rathaus: check. Signature cathedral: check. Various important looking statues and buildings: check and check. I was starting to get rained on so I went in search of my favorite indoor activity: a giant palace. Munich just so happens to have one: the Munich Residenz. Be warned: this will take you hours. It is huge, and unlike a lot of royal abodes, you can see most of it. Travelers Tip: go in the afternoon. According to my audio guide, more rooms are open then for no apparent reason. I just lucked out. Due to intense damage in WWII (whoopsie) much of the palace is no longer completely original, but they've saved a lot of it and restored the rest to its former glory.
Bit of history for you. This is where the Bavarian royal court spent most of its time. The first King Maximillian did most of the expanding and building on to the palace, and it became known throughout Europe as a model of how the royal lived. Later King Ludwig I did more expanding. Our builder King Ludwig II probably spent a good bit of time here as well. Probably my favorite room was the banquet hall. Paintings all over the ceiling and the walls are lined with Roman/Grecian busts. The weirdest room (in any place I have ever visited to date) was the relics collection. Holy moly that is sooooo creepy. Normally, you go in a cathedral, there's a large sculpture/painting and an ornately decorated box with a sign saying shrine and relics of St. Someone Who Died. Oh no. These are sheltered versions of the old school relics. Ornate gold and glass and all that jazz is still there, but with these reliquaries you can see the relic. I'm talking femurs held in gold stands, mummified hands in glass boxes, a miniature glass chasse containing a mummified toddler and the bones of others (supposedly the victims of King Herod), and the skulls of John the Baptist (allegedly) and other saints sitting on velvet cushions. Creepy creepy creepy.
Several hours and almost a hundred decadent rooms later, I left the Residenz museum in a state of near nirvana. And promptly went over the moon when I walked into the Treasury. So Sparkly! My cup runneth over. My final stop in the Residenz complex was the Royal Theater/Opera house. It was pretty nice, but not as cool as the Palais Garnier in Paris. Thus really only a five minute stop for pictures.
By this point it was close to 4:30 and I was what you might call STARVING. I tried to find with no success before I hurried back to the Rathaus for the Glockenspiele (German for clock chiming). I had missed the earlier ones so I wanted to be super sure to be there for one at 5. I and some 50 other people stood in the rain staring up at figurines dancing on the Rathaus tower high above us while the bells chimed some nice folksy sounding music. I kept thinking I recognized the tune but was never able to put my finger on it. During the first song there's a wedding scene (Duke Wilhelm V according to wikipedia) with a joust and the second song has some people dancing (the internet says that some dudes went dancing through the streets of Munich so everybody would know the plague was over). Anyway the whole thing is pretty famous so naturally I had to see it and it was pretty entertaining. For dinner I had Bavarian white sausage. Not bad at all, but rather difficult to eat.
My last adventure of the day was going to the top of the St. Peter's church tower. Now there are several towers in the downtown Munich area willing to charge you a small fee to avail yourself of their city views. I chose this one because a) it was the cheapest and b) it was across the street from where I ate dinner. There is a catch: this one does not have an elevator. Just 306 steps to the top. Or so they tell me. I didn't count. It was worth the effort though. During my time up there, the church decided it was time to chime for evening mass. Being at the top of a bell tower while the bells gong somewhere beneath your feet is an exceptional feeling. I can't describe it except to say that your whole body is vibrating in tune with that bell tone. Eventually I'd had enough so I headed down and I was glad I started to leave before the bells stopped. On the stairway there were 3 little windows I had not noticed on the way up that looked into the bell room. This giant bell the size of an SUV (and weighing probably three times as much) was swinging back and forth as graceful as you please. I'll never forget how big it was or the ease with which it moved. Sometimes it's the unexpected little things that have the most profound effect.
6/20/11
Go Gamecocks!
I desperately wish I could be in both Omaha and Germany at the same time, but alas, that is a machine science has not yet invented. Somebody start working on that. At any rate, I was wearing one of my many Carolina shirts today, specifically the pink basketball pep band one. This caused Dominik to inquire as to my ability to play basketball (which is sadly lacking) and thus launched us into a conversation about Carolina sports, marching band, basketball pep band, and how awesome our baseball team is. This is probably the most I have ever talked at lunch, and I've never had a more fascinated audience. He was thoroughly impressed by our 80,000 person stadium and our 300 person marching band. The conversation meandered to the football players and scholarships and how often they practice. I don't really know for a fact, but I'm pretty sure they practice almost everyday in the fall. And then he asks, "But when do they study?"
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Koln
This weekend being a normal weekend, I spent Saturday in Koln (if you speak German) or Cologne (if you speak English or French), which is about 2 and half hours from Paderborn. Via train, of course.
Walking out of the train station, if you can't find the cathedral, you are either blind or stupid, because it's right there. And it's huge. According to the brochure, it's the third largest cathedral in the world. I tried to figure out online which were the first two, but apparently it depends a great deal. First you have to be looking at only 'Cathedrals' and not 'Basilicas', and you have to decide whether height, area, or total volume is most important to you, and then you have to decide whether or not to count the one in NYC that is still unfinished. No matter which way you look at it, it's a really really really really big church.
And very pretty. It's what I've come to consider as remarkably damage-free, although it's clear not all of the stained glass windows have survived the marches of time. Most of the non-original windows have been replaced with traditional tile patters, but not all:
After the cathedral I went over by the river and walked up to the bridge to see if I could get a nice view. I did not get a nice view (it was rather a rainy day) but I did see these.
Along the whole length of the bridge there were thousands of these "love locks". The basic principle is you and your beloved write your names on your padlock of choice, hook it to the fence, and throw the key into the river, thus sealing your love forever. It's apparently quite popular, considering this bridge is only about 5 years old. I momentarily felt sorry for the fishies getting bonked on the head with undesired lock keys, but one look at the river told me that any fish living in that river had worse things to worry about than discard bits of metal.
If you follow said river, you will eventually come to the Chocolate Museum. It was much, much larger than the one I visited in Brussels (although funnily enough they were the same price) although it did not come with as many free samples. I learned all sorts of useless information about the growing of cocoa beans, the transportation of said beans, the process of making chocolate, the evolution of chocolate, etc, etc. Highlights: a "rainforest" room with a live cocoa tree, and a small-scale chocolate factory. The rainforest room was so hot and humid most of the Germans walked through at as quickly as possible, but I remained for a few minutes enjoying the home-like conditions. Frankly, Georgia is definitely humid enough for cocoa trees, but I think they'd find it too hot.
Yummy. After this I found some lunch and then considered what to do with my afternoon. Decision? The zoo. The Tourist Info place seemed to think it was great, so I decided what the heck. Why not go to the zoo. Upon reflection, I'm pretty sure it has been at least 5 years since I have been to a zoo and possibly even more than that. I think when I get home I will see if I can drag anyone to ZooAtlanta with me. It was definitely nap time when I was there because a lot of the animals were asleep or not home at the moment. My favorites though were conveniently visible.
It was a nice zoo overall, and I was definitely glad of the rainy weather. All the parents and their wailing two year olds had stayed home. I only got rained on a bit once, and I successfully waited it out by ducking inside the reptile house. Finally, back in town, I walked down the main shopping street until I came across the Cologne Fragrance Museum. Apparently, this is the original. I actually believe their claim, because the town hall has a statue of the guy who started his perfume shop here. It was very interesting, but I left with a headache. Too much fragrance in the air. On the plus side, I got a free sample and some free headphones leftover from the audio tour. Those headphones were much needed by the way. My poor old apple earbuds are falling apart and only one earbud currently works. So now I have new ones of fairly equivalent value. Yay!
Walking out of the train station, if you can't find the cathedral, you are either blind or stupid, because it's right there. And it's huge. According to the brochure, it's the third largest cathedral in the world. I tried to figure out online which were the first two, but apparently it depends a great deal. First you have to be looking at only 'Cathedrals' and not 'Basilicas', and you have to decide whether height, area, or total volume is most important to you, and then you have to decide whether or not to count the one in NYC that is still unfinished. No matter which way you look at it, it's a really really really really big church.
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| Kolner Dom or Cologne Cathedral |
And very pretty. It's what I've come to consider as remarkably damage-free, although it's clear not all of the stained glass windows have survived the marches of time. Most of the non-original windows have been replaced with traditional tile patters, but not all:
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| Historic stained glass |
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| Not-so-historic stained glass |
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| Super awesome floors too. |
After the cathedral I went over by the river and walked up to the bridge to see if I could get a nice view. I did not get a nice view (it was rather a rainy day) but I did see these.
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| Thousands of love locks |
If you follow said river, you will eventually come to the Chocolate Museum. It was much, much larger than the one I visited in Brussels (although funnily enough they were the same price) although it did not come with as many free samples. I learned all sorts of useless information about the growing of cocoa beans, the transportation of said beans, the process of making chocolate, the evolution of chocolate, etc, etc. Highlights: a "rainforest" room with a live cocoa tree, and a small-scale chocolate factory. The rainforest room was so hot and humid most of the Germans walked through at as quickly as possible, but I remained for a few minutes enjoying the home-like conditions. Frankly, Georgia is definitely humid enough for cocoa trees, but I think they'd find it too hot.
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| A real live cocoa tree with fruit! |
Eat your heart out:
Yummy. After this I found some lunch and then considered what to do with my afternoon. Decision? The zoo. The Tourist Info place seemed to think it was great, so I decided what the heck. Why not go to the zoo. Upon reflection, I'm pretty sure it has been at least 5 years since I have been to a zoo and possibly even more than that. I think when I get home I will see if I can drag anyone to ZooAtlanta with me. It was definitely nap time when I was there because a lot of the animals were asleep or not home at the moment. My favorites though were conveniently visible.
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| Yay for the Tiger! |
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| The Farina Haus, original makers of Eau de Cologne |
6/17/11
Weekend in Brussels
So we just had Pentecost (fiftieth day after Easter Sunday, feast celebrating the Holy Spirit coming to the disciples), which meant that Monday was a holiday. Three day weekend! I spent mine in Brussels with my friend Stephanie who's been studying in Mulhouse, France (blog here). We arrived Friday evening and left Monday afternoon.
I'm not sure what is in the left wing, but the right wing houses an enormous history museum. I know it's enormous because Stephanie and I went through all of it. It was very interesting, but you can't help but start to yawn at some point. It's a lot of stuff. But we left feeling very cultured. By that point we were getting rather tired, and running out of stuff we wanted to do. We had made what we thought was quite a long list, but we got it all done. So after dinner (I got a croque monsieur) we hung out in La Grand Place for a bit before heading back to the hostel.
We had one more morning in Brussels. We looked at the maps. We looked on the internet. We looked at the brochures. According to everybody, we had done it all. Now what? I'll tell you what. The Chocolate Museum. It was small, and not overly informative, but it had plenty of free samples, and a demonstration by a chocolatier. Worth it? Yes. Thus ended our Belgian adventures. Train rides home for both of us, in different directions. Fairly uneventful, though one of my trains ended up being defective so I got on another train to Hamm, though I had already missed my connection, and then took another train to Paderborn. A very full train. I had to stand the entire last leg of the journey (like an hour), squashed between a bike, a baby stroller, 8 other people, and a family with a dog. Between one set of stops it was so crowded I stood on one leg so the poor dog could lay down. Good to be back.
Friday we didn't do much. We found food (doners) and chatted, and then we went to bed. We stayed at this pretty nice hostel, called the Hello Hostel. It was clean and the manager was nice. The breakfast was terrible, but it was free so no complaints.
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| The area we stayed in |
Saturday we got up pretty early, which ended up being a pretty good thing as we spent way too much time trying to find the atomium. Lesson: don't just assume that an arrow on the map means it's nearby or that you are headed in the right direction. Always look up exact locations for anything you want to see. We ended up giving up on it until we could figure out exactly where we needed to go and headed for the comic strip museum. It was awesome. Everything you could ever want to know about the history and development of European comics in French, Dutch, and English. It wasn't exclusively european, per se, but frankly, the creators of the museum clearly felt a little bias. Interesting stuff though. Many comics I had not heard of, partly I think because I'm only 21, and partly because many comics don't bridge the Atlantic. I did get to learn about the Smurfs though. They're actually a Belgian comic strip, so when we got to the gift shop I couldn't help buying myself a souvenir: a copy of the first book of smurf comics, in its original french. Les Stroumpfs.
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| Outside the comic strip museum |
After the comic strip museum we headed over towards La Grand Place. There are many Places in Bruxelles (the Museum Place for example) but this is the big one. It's huge, and the buildings are centuries old and ornately decorated. It's filled with tourists of course. We decided to have lunch there and settled on sharing an order of moules frites (a very good idea because they give you a lot). Moules frites (or mussels and fries) is almost a national dish. It's sort of a "must-have". It was delicious. Stephanie ordered a beer, which I tried (because you can't go to Belgium and not have any beer), which was not delicious. Whenever I took a tumble in the waves at the beach my relatives would laugh and say "well now you know the ocean's still salty". Well I took a sip of the beer and it still doesn't taste good.
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| La Grand Place |
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| Moules Frites! |
Following lunch we headed out to find the Mannekin Pis, the famous statue of a peeing boy. I have a thing for strange or funny statues so I was looking forward to this. Sadly, it's a tad anticlimactic. It's really small, and on this sort of side street. We almost missed it. It was sort of like, well, ok, I guess I'll take a picture...Not that cool. Not sure why this is so well known. We next went to the bourse (or stock exchange) and then took the metro to the stop for the Atomium and Mini-Europe (thank you free brochure from the comic strip museum).
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| A random parade/procession thing that went by |
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| the Mannekin Pis |
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| La Bourse |
Next stop: the Atomium. The Atomium is this giant metal structure representing an iron crystal built for the 1958 world fair. It's sort of akin to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. You mostly go for the view. Which was worth it. It was also worth it just to get a picture of a giant iron crystal.
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| Atomium |
Mini-Europe is a major tourist trap. Just a warning. It is especially attractive to families with small children whose parents are overly indulgent and incapable of discipline. That's all I'm saying. It was fun though. They had representations of all the different EU countries' well-known cities and landmarks. They even had little miniature people and moving parts. Each country also had a button which played it's national anthem, but they all sounded the same to me.
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| La Mini Place |
That sort of rounded out Saturday. We had dinner at a little Italian restaurant on a street indicated by our map as having lots of food. The street is literally one italian restaurant after the next, with pretty much equivalent menus and prices. You can either just pick one or allow the Maitre D's to fight over you. The Maitre D's are hysterical. They stand outside trying to convince people to eat at their restaurant and pick playful fights with each other ("Don't eat there! They'll poison you! Don't listen to him! He's french!). We just picked one and ate off the 12 euro menu. Pretty good, and it included dessert.
Sunday. We slept in a bit more knowing things wouldn't be open for a little while but we headed out around 10. First stop: Le Palais de Justice. Unfortunately, it seemed to be undergoing some maintenance that requires scaffolding to be placed over the entire front of the building. So I only got side shots. Across the street though was this neat looking war memorial commemorating the soldiers who had died in the first or second world wars. At least, I thought it was neat until I turned the corner to look at the other side and realized it was a tomb. Then it was just creepy.
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| Le Palais de Justice |
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| War memorial/tomb |
We then headed towards the royal palace. On the way, we stopped at the fine art museum and went through like a gazillion exhibits of mostly religious art covering like 4 centuries. We walked away feeling very cultured and continued on to the palace. I love castles, palaces, mansions, you name it, so if there's a royal palace to be seen, I'm going to see it. No tours though. You can look from the outside but that's it. Sad day. Guess that's the downside of still having a royal family.
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| As close as I can get to the Royal Palace |
After the obligatory picture taking, we headed through the park towards the Belgian Parliament building. On the way we stopped for these:
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| Belgian waffles! |
You knew it was coming. I couldn't go to Belgium and not get waffles could I? Stephanie got pistachio ice cream on hers; all the white fluffy stuff on mine? whip cream baby. Be jealous. Another obligatory picture of the Belgian parliament and on we went. EU Commission: rather boring. EU parliament buildings: also rather boring. Belgian Arc de Triomphe: not boring.
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| EU building |
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| Belgian Arc de Triomphe and one of the wings |
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| In our wanderings we came across this, and I needed a picture. |
We had one more morning in Brussels. We looked at the maps. We looked on the internet. We looked at the brochures. According to everybody, we had done it all. Now what? I'll tell you what. The Chocolate Museum. It was small, and not overly informative, but it had plenty of free samples, and a demonstration by a chocolatier. Worth it? Yes. Thus ended our Belgian adventures. Train rides home for both of us, in different directions. Fairly uneventful, though one of my trains ended up being defective so I got on another train to Hamm, though I had already missed my connection, and then took another train to Paderborn. A very full train. I had to stand the entire last leg of the journey (like an hour), squashed between a bike, a baby stroller, 8 other people, and a family with a dog. Between one set of stops it was so crowded I stood on one leg so the poor dog could lay down. Good to be back.
6/15/11
Bits and Pieces
Haribo gummy bears are very popular here. They have more varieties of gummy candies than I knew existed. Tonight I decided to try a bag of Original Happy Cola and now my whole room smells like soda. Pretty good though, and my room could smell worse for sure.
There seems to be a hose trend here. I've seen several girls walking around or on the train or something wearing black hose with a) shorts of lengths varying from hot pants to bermudas or b) a skirt or dress so short it could not possibly be covering everything it needs to. I'm not talking leggings or tights here, I'm talking about old fashioned black hose. It's not really an attractive look. And the girls who tend to be wearing this trend are not the super skinny wannebe models who are prone to wearing outrageous clothing; it's the girls with a lot of junk in the trunk if you know what I mean. I really want to walk up to them and explain that wearing shorter skirts is not going to get them the kind of attention they want. And Hosiery Should Never Be Used As A Substitute For Pants!
My love of Kinder chocolate has extended from Kinder Bueno to Kinder Riegel bars as well. Mmmm.
Everyone here eats their french fries with mayo instead of ketchup. I know people in the US who do this, but it's not really "normal". Really I could go either way. Ketchup or mayo, or nothing, it really doesn't affect my love of french fries.
You know how on plastic drink bottles they have the extra piece of plastic below the cap? And normally it breaks off when you open it the first time (or sometimes it stays attached and just slides off with the cap)? They're different here. They have the same piece of plastic attached to the cap, but it stays attached. It breaks about halfway around (thus allowing you to remove the cap) but it stays attached to the cap. Still not used to it.
Also, the high here is still only about 75 degrees. We've had one or two days where it got up to 80, but that's about it so far.
My love of Kinder chocolate has extended from Kinder Bueno to Kinder Riegel bars as well. Mmmm.
Everyone here eats their french fries with mayo instead of ketchup. I know people in the US who do this, but it's not really "normal". Really I could go either way. Ketchup or mayo, or nothing, it really doesn't affect my love of french fries.
You know how on plastic drink bottles they have the extra piece of plastic below the cap? And normally it breaks off when you open it the first time (or sometimes it stays attached and just slides off with the cap)? They're different here. They have the same piece of plastic attached to the cap, but it stays attached. It breaks about halfway around (thus allowing you to remove the cap) but it stays attached to the cap. Still not used to it.
Also, the high here is still only about 75 degrees. We've had one or two days where it got up to 80, but that's about it so far.
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| A lovely sunset out my bedroom window! |
6/6/11
Ascension Weekend Part 3
Welcome to part 3 in which I go to Herrenchiemsee. If you're not sure what's going on here, go back about two posts and catch up. Ready? Let's go.
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I got up early and hopped on a train at 7 am. Some people make fun of me for the way I travel, but frankly I'll sleep when I'm at home and have nothing better to do. I'm here to see stuff! So I get up early and run around all day until I fall over from exhaustion. After I got to Prien, I hopped on the "Chiemseebahn", an adorable little train that takes you from the train station to the boat dock. One short boat ride later I was on the Herreninsel ("Gentlemen's Island").
Ok a little more history. Ludwig II was really big into the absolute royalty of the past. He fell in love with stories of knights and princesses when he was a little boy and never really moved on from that. He was especially inspired by the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, and often called him his "ideal". He basically saw Versailles and like myself wished he could live there. Unlike myself he had the money and power to build himself his own Versailles, which is essentially what he set out to do with Herrenchiemsee (pron: Hair-en-kim-zay). Like Neuschwanstein, he didn't get to finish this one either. He only got the main building built (no wings) and didn't finish decorating that. He had also planned on having the grounds cover most of the island but never got around to it. In building Herrenchiemsee, he wasn't going for an exact replica. He wanted a "perfected" Versailles. "Historicizing" was a popular trend at the time. Basically the idea was to take a historic style and then perfect it. So Herrenchiemsee is supposed to be a monument to world of Louis XIV but at a higher level and with modern conveniences. Historical accuracy wasn't really a concern.
Once again, I got assigned to an English tour, but it wasn't for a little while so I did some meandering. Saw an old church, some farm buildings, an orchard (apparently growing citrus fruits was the thing to do to show how rich you were). Then I started down the walk towards the palace. The original landing point that Ludwig would have used doesn't leave any room for a ticket booth or souvenir shop, so they make the boats dock on the other end of the island. However, it's a pretty island and I passed by some German cows.
The path runs sort of perpendicular to the way the palace and gardens are set up, so you're walking along and then all the sudden you turn your head and there it is. Gorgeous. The fountains and front lawn are just lovely and then you walk up to this huge imposing edifice.
Now I have seen Versailles. I have been through that palace, and all over it's grounds. I am here to tell you, Herrenchiemsee is more elaborate, more ornate, more over the top. Ludwig's King's Bedroom and Hall of Mirrors are better than the originals. When you come in, you're in this large foyer with a double staircase. He wanted it to resemble the room in Versailles with all the different types of marble (which it does), but instead of using marble, he used this stucco stuff that's actually more expensive than the real deal. Only the floors are actually marble. Then you go through the first and second antechambers which have these huge crystal chandeliers. Each one weighs over half a ton. No worries though, they're each being held up by a golden angel. The King's Bedroom is magnificent. The gold leaf alone took 7 years to finish. Everything is gold. It's just dazzling. Strange thing though: Ludwig never used it. He lived in the palace for like a week (remember it's still not finished) and he chose to live instead in a second apartment he had built for himself. I personally would not be able to resist sleeping in that bed. How you could build that room and not sleep in it is beyond me. Maybe he was crazy after all. Anyway, the Hall of Mirrors is unbelievable too. It's longer than the original, has more chandeliers than the original, and is just more sparkly than the original. All of the chandeliers are lit with candles, and it took a crew of servants about half an hour to light them all. Ludwig never bothered having a banquet in here; he only had the candles lit for himself. Unlike the original Ludwig also had the ceilings covered in paintings. The artist suggested painting Ludwig as Helios, but he refused and made him change it to Louis XIV. He was rather finicky about this being a french palace. He wanted very few references to Bavaria and there are no portraits of him in the entire building. His own apartments are nothing to sneeze at either. Gorgeous, but not quite on the scale of the official rooms.
After the tour, I went into a special exhibit on Ludwig II's life and castle building. They showed some stuff about his childhood which was kind of fun. For one Christmas, his grandfather Ludwig I gave him a block set of some famous castle so he could build it and commented in a letter that his grandson "already shows great skill and taste in construction". There's also a miniature bayonet that was made for him so he could start military training when he was seven. They also showed a typical weekly schedule he would have had as a kid. Literally every minute of every day was planned out for him, even when he was on vacation. They had a lot of stuff about the war with Prussia and then Bavaria losing its sovereignty. I have to admit, I lost interest in this part. I've just never been that interested wars and battles. The next room however was great. They had computer animations showing how Neuschwanstein was built and virtual tours of some of the rooms he had planned but been unable to finish. They also had a virtual tour showing another castle that he had planned but never started. It was really cool to see, especially after having just been there.
This palace is known as the "new palace" because there's also an Augustinian monastery on the island which had served at one point as a royal home (the "old palace"). So I went over there and walked through it. Very boring, sorry to say. Only about three rooms were still as they were when Ludwig would have been there: his bedroom (very plain), his living room (also rather plain), and the dining hall. The dining hall was kind of cool in that the walls were painted with portraits of various Roman emperors. The rest of the building is a museum with some stuff about WWII that I did not understand, and a lot of paintings by a local artist who apparently enjoyed painting naked women.
I still had a few hours before the last boat left the island (to be followed by a two hour wait for my train) so I started walking around. There are paths all over the island taking you to different look out points and the like. My first destination was a really old church that is apparently one of the oldest in Germany. Who knew. It was tiny so I'm pretty sure only about 15 people could have attended at any given time. 20 if they were all very skinny and sat very close together. I then walked down to the other end of the island to a pretty little spot called Otto's Ruhe (Otto's resting spot) where I rested for a few minutes. Then it was time to head back to the dock, passing by Herrenchiemsee one last time.
Then it was a boat ride and several train rides home. What a weekend. I wish we had castles in the US. Democracy is great, but if you don't have a king, there's no one to build a castle. The white house just isn't the same. If the government is so intent on wasting money, the least they could do is waste it on something beautiful.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I got up early and hopped on a train at 7 am. Some people make fun of me for the way I travel, but frankly I'll sleep when I'm at home and have nothing better to do. I'm here to see stuff! So I get up early and run around all day until I fall over from exhaustion. After I got to Prien, I hopped on the "Chiemseebahn", an adorable little train that takes you from the train station to the boat dock. One short boat ride later I was on the Herreninsel ("Gentlemen's Island").
 |
| Herreninsel, from the boat |
Ok a little more history. Ludwig II was really big into the absolute royalty of the past. He fell in love with stories of knights and princesses when he was a little boy and never really moved on from that. He was especially inspired by the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, and often called him his "ideal". He basically saw Versailles and like myself wished he could live there. Unlike myself he had the money and power to build himself his own Versailles, which is essentially what he set out to do with Herrenchiemsee (pron: Hair-en-kim-zay). Like Neuschwanstein, he didn't get to finish this one either. He only got the main building built (no wings) and didn't finish decorating that. He had also planned on having the grounds cover most of the island but never got around to it. In building Herrenchiemsee, he wasn't going for an exact replica. He wanted a "perfected" Versailles. "Historicizing" was a popular trend at the time. Basically the idea was to take a historic style and then perfect it. So Herrenchiemsee is supposed to be a monument to world of Louis XIV but at a higher level and with modern conveniences. Historical accuracy wasn't really a concern.
Once again, I got assigned to an English tour, but it wasn't for a little while so I did some meandering. Saw an old church, some farm buildings, an orchard (apparently growing citrus fruits was the thing to do to show how rich you were). Then I started down the walk towards the palace. The original landing point that Ludwig would have used doesn't leave any room for a ticket booth or souvenir shop, so they make the boats dock on the other end of the island. However, it's a pretty island and I passed by some German cows.
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| German cows |
The path runs sort of perpendicular to the way the palace and gardens are set up, so you're walking along and then all the sudden you turn your head and there it is. Gorgeous. The fountains and front lawn are just lovely and then you walk up to this huge imposing edifice.
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| Herrenchiemsee with front lawn and fountain |
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| Gardens, fountains, and palaces, oh my! |
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| The Fama fountain |
Now I have seen Versailles. I have been through that palace, and all over it's grounds. I am here to tell you, Herrenchiemsee is more elaborate, more ornate, more over the top. Ludwig's King's Bedroom and Hall of Mirrors are better than the originals. When you come in, you're in this large foyer with a double staircase. He wanted it to resemble the room in Versailles with all the different types of marble (which it does), but instead of using marble, he used this stucco stuff that's actually more expensive than the real deal. Only the floors are actually marble. Then you go through the first and second antechambers which have these huge crystal chandeliers. Each one weighs over half a ton. No worries though, they're each being held up by a golden angel. The King's Bedroom is magnificent. The gold leaf alone took 7 years to finish. Everything is gold. It's just dazzling. Strange thing though: Ludwig never used it. He lived in the palace for like a week (remember it's still not finished) and he chose to live instead in a second apartment he had built for himself. I personally would not be able to resist sleeping in that bed. How you could build that room and not sleep in it is beyond me. Maybe he was crazy after all. Anyway, the Hall of Mirrors is unbelievable too. It's longer than the original, has more chandeliers than the original, and is just more sparkly than the original. All of the chandeliers are lit with candles, and it took a crew of servants about half an hour to light them all. Ludwig never bothered having a banquet in here; he only had the candles lit for himself. Unlike the original Ludwig also had the ceilings covered in paintings. The artist suggested painting Ludwig as Helios, but he refused and made him change it to Louis XIV. He was rather finicky about this being a french palace. He wanted very few references to Bavaria and there are no portraits of him in the entire building. His own apartments are nothing to sneeze at either. Gorgeous, but not quite on the scale of the official rooms.
After the tour, I went into a special exhibit on Ludwig II's life and castle building. They showed some stuff about his childhood which was kind of fun. For one Christmas, his grandfather Ludwig I gave him a block set of some famous castle so he could build it and commented in a letter that his grandson "already shows great skill and taste in construction". There's also a miniature bayonet that was made for him so he could start military training when he was seven. They also showed a typical weekly schedule he would have had as a kid. Literally every minute of every day was planned out for him, even when he was on vacation. They had a lot of stuff about the war with Prussia and then Bavaria losing its sovereignty. I have to admit, I lost interest in this part. I've just never been that interested wars and battles. The next room however was great. They had computer animations showing how Neuschwanstein was built and virtual tours of some of the rooms he had planned but been unable to finish. They also had a virtual tour showing another castle that he had planned but never started. It was really cool to see, especially after having just been there.
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| The back lawn, which was the original entrance |
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| Taste the rainbow! My afternoon snack |
This palace is known as the "new palace" because there's also an Augustinian monastery on the island which had served at one point as a royal home (the "old palace"). So I went over there and walked through it. Very boring, sorry to say. Only about three rooms were still as they were when Ludwig would have been there: his bedroom (very plain), his living room (also rather plain), and the dining hall. The dining hall was kind of cool in that the walls were painted with portraits of various Roman emperors. The rest of the building is a museum with some stuff about WWII that I did not understand, and a lot of paintings by a local artist who apparently enjoyed painting naked women.
I still had a few hours before the last boat left the island (to be followed by a two hour wait for my train) so I started walking around. There are paths all over the island taking you to different look out points and the like. My first destination was a really old church that is apparently one of the oldest in Germany. Who knew. It was tiny so I'm pretty sure only about 15 people could have attended at any given time. 20 if they were all very skinny and sat very close together. I then walked down to the other end of the island to a pretty little spot called Otto's Ruhe (Otto's resting spot) where I rested for a few minutes. Then it was time to head back to the dock, passing by Herrenchiemsee one last time.
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| The extremely old and extremely tiny church |
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| Otto's Ruhe |
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| Herrenchiemsee in the late afternoon sun |
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| The original entrance as seen from the boat as we were leaving |
Then it was a boat ride and several train rides home. What a weekend. I wish we had castles in the US. Democracy is great, but if you don't have a king, there's no one to build a castle. The white house just isn't the same. If the government is so intent on wasting money, the least they could do is waste it on something beautiful.
6/5/11
Ascension Weekend Part 2
Here we go with Part 2 of my Ascension weekend adventures. Go back one post to read the first part and then you'll be caught up. Part 3 to follow.
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Fussen
Ok, at some point in all this you are asking yourself, wait, this is a 4-day weekend, why is she only doing two days? There's a fairly simple answer though as usual I will spend a paragraph explaining it. I had planned three days with a day at Linderhof, another of Ludwig's castles. However there were absolutely no hostels available for Friday night. Not one in all of Bavaria. So I cut out Linderhof. Then when Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau only took a few hours I started to think Linderhof might be back on the table. Alas neither bus nor train could be induced to cooperate, leaving me with an empty afternoon in Fussen.
It's not a large town (ok, it's pretty darn small), but like most it is filled with signs promoting its points of interest. So I started going down the list. The cathedral is a real gem. Quite unexpectedly given the size of the town and the plain exterior, the doors open to reveal a light airy chapel with the most beautiful ceiling. Almost everything inside is white, except for the organ, the altar, and the ceiling. The ceiling is decorated with paintings ranging from biblical scenes to important bishops reading to small angelic children. The color immediately draws your eye upward. It's amazing I didn't bump into anyone as I circled around with face up at the ceiling. The gold and marble organ is something to behold as well, though at the moment they're fundraising to have some apparently much needed repairs done.
As I wandered on I came across the ruins (and I mean, literally only the front and half of one tower were not yet caved in) of an old castle that must have once been quite pretty with its double staircase and fountain.
Next door is the town castle/fortress/monastery. Part of it is now an art museum with I did not go in seeing as I'm a cheapskate, but the roof garden and tower are free. The tower is maybe six stories high but it has great views of the lake/river and mountains.
Also of note: an old creepy cemetary in which the graves are facing in all different directions. I felt weird even walking on the path, like I might be unwittingly stepping on somebody. I found a gelato place and got tiramisu gelato. Be jealous. I also came across a random jazzband on a street corner. (Name that tune: Cause I ain't got no-boooood-dy! .... I am so sad and loooone-ly!) My feet were officially not happy campers by that time so I started following the signs for the youth hostel.
My first youth hostel experience began with me walking into a lobby full of screaming children. I got checked in at the desk no problem where I also learned that besides the youth dorms they also offer private rooms for families. I swear the kids were running up and down the halls yelling at the top of their voices continuously for the next 4 and 1/2 hours. If my sister and I had ever even thought of making half as much noise as these children, I would not be alive today to tell you how awful these brats were. I was beginning to fear for my sanity (and my ability to sleep) when suddenly at 10 everything went silent. Thank god for enforced quiet hours! Other than that, it went great. It was very clean. I shared a room with five other girls one of which was from Canada. It was nice getting to speak English for once. The others were Asian, so they didn't say much but were very nice. The bathrooms were not my favorite (smallest shower I have ever seen) but high pressure, hot water makes life better. Free breakfast in the morning didn't hurt either. All in all I had a nice afternoon in Fussen and a good first hostel experience.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fussen
Ok, at some point in all this you are asking yourself, wait, this is a 4-day weekend, why is she only doing two days? There's a fairly simple answer though as usual I will spend a paragraph explaining it. I had planned three days with a day at Linderhof, another of Ludwig's castles. However there were absolutely no hostels available for Friday night. Not one in all of Bavaria. So I cut out Linderhof. Then when Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau only took a few hours I started to think Linderhof might be back on the table. Alas neither bus nor train could be induced to cooperate, leaving me with an empty afternoon in Fussen.
It's not a large town (ok, it's pretty darn small), but like most it is filled with signs promoting its points of interest. So I started going down the list. The cathedral is a real gem. Quite unexpectedly given the size of the town and the plain exterior, the doors open to reveal a light airy chapel with the most beautiful ceiling. Almost everything inside is white, except for the organ, the altar, and the ceiling. The ceiling is decorated with paintings ranging from biblical scenes to important bishops reading to small angelic children. The color immediately draws your eye upward. It's amazing I didn't bump into anyone as I circled around with face up at the ceiling. The gold and marble organ is something to behold as well, though at the moment they're fundraising to have some apparently much needed repairs done.
As I wandered on I came across the ruins (and I mean, literally only the front and half of one tower were not yet caved in) of an old castle that must have once been quite pretty with its double staircase and fountain.
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| The poor ruined castle |
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| One time monastery, then fortress, then castle of sorts |
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| View from the tower |
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| I love the color of the water |
Also of note: an old creepy cemetary in which the graves are facing in all different directions. I felt weird even walking on the path, like I might be unwittingly stepping on somebody. I found a gelato place and got tiramisu gelato. Be jealous. I also came across a random jazzband on a street corner. (Name that tune: Cause I ain't got no-boooood-dy! .... I am so sad and loooone-ly!) My feet were officially not happy campers by that time so I started following the signs for the youth hostel.
 |
| The signs said this was important |
 |
| From the bridge over the river, such a pretty area |
My first youth hostel experience began with me walking into a lobby full of screaming children. I got checked in at the desk no problem where I also learned that besides the youth dorms they also offer private rooms for families. I swear the kids were running up and down the halls yelling at the top of their voices continuously for the next 4 and 1/2 hours. If my sister and I had ever even thought of making half as much noise as these children, I would not be alive today to tell you how awful these brats were. I was beginning to fear for my sanity (and my ability to sleep) when suddenly at 10 everything went silent. Thank god for enforced quiet hours! Other than that, it went great. It was very clean. I shared a room with five other girls one of which was from Canada. It was nice getting to speak English for once. The others were Asian, so they didn't say much but were very nice. The bathrooms were not my favorite (smallest shower I have ever seen) but high pressure, hot water makes life better. Free breakfast in the morning didn't hurt either. All in all I had a nice afternoon in Fussen and a good first hostel experience.
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| This is what I woke up to the next morning! |
Ascension Weekend Part 1
Thursday was Ascension, a national holiday in Germany. Because it falls on a thursday, friday is sort of a holiday too. Four day weekend, woohoo! (Side note: school was still in session on Friday, which I know because a whole bunch of high schoolers got on the train out of Fussen with me and then deboarded a few stops later in front of a large building). Anyway, I used my holiday to go castle-hopping. First Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau, both near Fussen Germany, on Thursday and then Herrenchiemsee near Prien on Friday. There so much to talk about so this is going to be a three part posting.
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I love traveling by train, watching the scenery glide by your window. You get a wonderful feeling for what a country looks like when you travel by train. They're so convenient in Europe too. I left Paderborn at a quarter to 8 on Wednesday evening, so I got about 2 and 1/2 hours to see by.
Germany is so beautiful. Sparse pine forests cover the somewhat ungently rolling foothills of the mountains. Quaint villages nestle between the folds of the land looking in all probability just as they did a hundred years ago. When night came and I could see nothing more, it was as if the lights had just come on at the end of a movie.
When I finally arrived in Fussen the next morning I was exhausted, freezing, and dying to find a bathroom. (For the record, there are free public WC's at the Fussen train station and at Hohenschwangau). The bus to Hohenschwangau (the town) was pretty short (3.80 for a two way ticket, saving you about 50 cents), and the bus driver was super nice about my butchered pronunciation. Correct way: Hoshvangow. Traveler's Tip: get the royal ticket and see both castles. It doesn't take that long to do them both and Hohenschwangau is just as deserving. Also, go early. Most of the large tour groups come in the afternoon, but there were no lines when I got there. Sadly, no pictures inside the castles (this is becoming a recurring theme).
You have to do a guided tour to see the castles and they assign you to a tour based on your language of choice. It was great getting to be an American tourist amongst other American tourists for a while. Plus the tour guides spoke very clearly so I can tell you a whole bunch of neat stuff.
First a little history lesson. Hohenschwangau literally means the High Swan District. According to ancient legend, this is the Swan Knight's lake. Considering the fairy tale is of French origin, I think this a whole bunch of medieval hooey, but if there really were some medieval knights who built a castle here and were known as the Schwangau knights. The castle was called Schwanstein and swans later became a symbol of the Wittelsbach family (Ludwig II's family). Ludwig II is also sometimes called the Swan King. Anyway, the Schwangau knights died out by the mid-1500s, the castle switched hands several times (and fell into major disrepair), and King Maximillian II of Bavaria scooped up the property and built Hohenschwangau on the ruins. Max and his wife Marie had two sons, Ludwig and Otto. At 23, Otto (the younger son) developed a mental illness (probably schizophrenia). Ludwig became king at 18 when his father unexpectedly died of illness following a trip to Italy. His grandfather was still alive by the way, but he had abdicated the throne ages ago to let his son do all the work while he enjoyed retirement. Ludwig II built (or started to build) some of Germany's most famous castles and palaces. For obvious reasons I'm a major fan. He was also good buddies with Richard Wagner. Anyway, after he lost the war with Prussia, he got demoted. He was still King, but because Bavaria was no longer a sovereign nation, it really didn't matter. He responded by spending inordinate amounts of money to build his fantasy castles. The bank threatened to seize his properties, but the government sort of stepped in. They got a foreign doctor who had never even met Ludwig (they didn't even use one of the doctors who were tending Otto) to declare him "crazy", sent out an official proclamation telling everyone he was not fit to rule and formally deposing him, and they forced him to leave Neuschwanstein and come to Munich. The next day he was mysteriously found dead by the lake. No cause of death. Otto already being on the not-allowed-to-rule-the-country list, their uncle Luitpold ruled as Prince-Regent for 18 years until he died. His son Ludwig then took over and got the government to make him King instead of poor, crazy Otto (who at least got to keep his titles until he died). Draw your own conclusions.
Anyway, Hohenschwangau is where Ludwig grew up when the family wasn't in Munich. He spent a lot of time there as an adult as well. The family still owns this castle, and to my mind it's more of a "real" castle, a little more authentic. They have a lot of the original furnishings and decorations and stuff. The walls are covered in murals (depicting a variety of things but frequently the story of the swan knight) that still have all their vivid color because Maximillian had the good sense to have a clear protective coating applied on top of the paint. Apparently the way they lived was the queen had her floor, the king had his directly above it, and they put the kids in a separate building. Nice right? Max travelled to Turkey and loved it so much that he had his wife's bedroom fitted up with columns and Turkish-style decor so she could experience it too. He was very romantic: in his bedroom he had stars on the ceiling with tiny crystals so the stars would glow if you put a candle on the floor at night. Sound strange for a guy sleeping on a different floor than his wife? No worries: there's a secret door in the king's bedroom that leads down to the queen's. Most of what I marveled at though were the ornate pieces they had on display. Gigantic solid gold centerpieces, silver replicas of famous fountains, an ivory and gold cabinet with the coat of arms of each Bavarian district. One of the Russian czars gave Ludwig a cross for his chapel made entirely out of lapis lazuli. Someone gave Luitpold (the uncle) a gold statue of Diana the huntress on a green marble mountain because he like hunting.
I had some downtime before my next tour, so I wandered a bit, looked around the shops and such. Then after buying my mommy a present (it's a surprise! so she'll just have to guess) I started up the mountain. This is no wussy hill. This is a mountain and it is quite a trek. It's not very far, but it is very steep. Either bring a water bottle with you or be prepared to pay for the shuttle or horse-drawn carriage. I was especially glad to have my water bottle after I decided to go see Mary's Bridge. What can I say, my parents have raised a hiker. I'm sure it has magnificent views, but it was so cloudy all I saw was white. Down in the ravine some 150-200 ft below us (my mother would have hated this bridge), there was a nice waterfall. You can get an even better view of the waterfall if you go down a gazillion stairs to this sort of lookout point. I was quite glad I went down the stairs until I started to go back up them again.
Clouds were pretty much the order of the day. They made it somewhat difficult to get good pictures. It did add to the whole fairy tale aspect of it all though. Neuschwanstein is literally like walking into every fairy tale you've ever heard. The windows of one room were open and some clouds billowed in: I seriously felt like I was in heaven. God, if you're taking requests, I would like my room to look like Neuschwanstein. The sad thing with this castle (and most of the castles Ludwig built) was that it was never finished. Ludwig only lived there 172 days and he never saw it without scaffolding. The parts that he did finish are beyond description though. The throne room looks like a Byzantine church and its floor has a mosaic with over 2 million tile pieces. There's no throne though; it never got built (stupid stingy government). The Singing Hall is also amazing. The walls are painted with murals telling the story of Perzival the Grail King (the father of Lohengrin the Swan Knight). Actually most of the walls in the castle are depicting the story of somebody. St. George and the Dragon was clearly a favorite. The king's bedroom is probably my favorite room. It took a team of woodworkers 4 years to finish all the carving in that room alone. You can see into his bathroom and it gives new meaning to "the porcelain throne". It literally looks like a wooden throne with a leather seat except that there's a lid. That's the other thing about Ludwig: he liked his modern conveniences. The whole castle was built with modern plumbing (for the time), electric lighting, and central heating. He also had a telephone, but the only place he could call was the post office since nobody else in Bavaria had one. He also had a state-of-the-art kitchen and a nifty way of calling his servants. He would press a button which would sound a bell in the servants' waiting room and turn on a light telling them where to go. Not bad for the 19th century. I spent most of the tour with my mouth open; Ludwig had a flair for the ornate. It's sad he didn't really get to enjoy it. I mean, he built a fake grotto complete with waterfall for the acting out of of Wagner's operas, and it never got used. He never saw a performance in the Singing Hall. He never got to hold a banquet there. He never even got to finish building the thing, let alone decorating it. The guy created something beautiful but never got the chance to see his vision come to life.
Before we feel too bad for him though I will tell you this funny story. He and the sister of Empress Elizabeth of Austria (Empress Sisi), Sophie, had a thing for like forever. They got engaged and then after 8 months he broke it off. By mail. Without a reason. Can you imagine? "Dear Sophie, It's over. ~Ludwig". Jerk. This may have contributed to the insanity accusations. Oh and the cinematic romance between him and Sisi? Completely made up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I love traveling by train, watching the scenery glide by your window. You get a wonderful feeling for what a country looks like when you travel by train. They're so convenient in Europe too. I left Paderborn at a quarter to 8 on Wednesday evening, so I got about 2 and 1/2 hours to see by.
Germany is so beautiful. Sparse pine forests cover the somewhat ungently rolling foothills of the mountains. Quaint villages nestle between the folds of the land looking in all probability just as they did a hundred years ago. When night came and I could see nothing more, it was as if the lights had just come on at the end of a movie.
When I finally arrived in Fussen the next morning I was exhausted, freezing, and dying to find a bathroom. (For the record, there are free public WC's at the Fussen train station and at Hohenschwangau). The bus to Hohenschwangau (the town) was pretty short (3.80 for a two way ticket, saving you about 50 cents), and the bus driver was super nice about my butchered pronunciation. Correct way: Hoshvangow. Traveler's Tip: get the royal ticket and see both castles. It doesn't take that long to do them both and Hohenschwangau is just as deserving. Also, go early. Most of the large tour groups come in the afternoon, but there were no lines when I got there. Sadly, no pictures inside the castles (this is becoming a recurring theme).
You have to do a guided tour to see the castles and they assign you to a tour based on your language of choice. It was great getting to be an American tourist amongst other American tourists for a while. Plus the tour guides spoke very clearly so I can tell you a whole bunch of neat stuff.
First a little history lesson. Hohenschwangau literally means the High Swan District. According to ancient legend, this is the Swan Knight's lake. Considering the fairy tale is of French origin, I think this a whole bunch of medieval hooey, but if there really were some medieval knights who built a castle here and were known as the Schwangau knights. The castle was called Schwanstein and swans later became a symbol of the Wittelsbach family (Ludwig II's family). Ludwig II is also sometimes called the Swan King. Anyway, the Schwangau knights died out by the mid-1500s, the castle switched hands several times (and fell into major disrepair), and King Maximillian II of Bavaria scooped up the property and built Hohenschwangau on the ruins. Max and his wife Marie had two sons, Ludwig and Otto. At 23, Otto (the younger son) developed a mental illness (probably schizophrenia). Ludwig became king at 18 when his father unexpectedly died of illness following a trip to Italy. His grandfather was still alive by the way, but he had abdicated the throne ages ago to let his son do all the work while he enjoyed retirement. Ludwig II built (or started to build) some of Germany's most famous castles and palaces. For obvious reasons I'm a major fan. He was also good buddies with Richard Wagner. Anyway, after he lost the war with Prussia, he got demoted. He was still King, but because Bavaria was no longer a sovereign nation, it really didn't matter. He responded by spending inordinate amounts of money to build his fantasy castles. The bank threatened to seize his properties, but the government sort of stepped in. They got a foreign doctor who had never even met Ludwig (they didn't even use one of the doctors who were tending Otto) to declare him "crazy", sent out an official proclamation telling everyone he was not fit to rule and formally deposing him, and they forced him to leave Neuschwanstein and come to Munich. The next day he was mysteriously found dead by the lake. No cause of death. Otto already being on the not-allowed-to-rule-the-country list, their uncle Luitpold ruled as Prince-Regent for 18 years until he died. His son Ludwig then took over and got the government to make him King instead of poor, crazy Otto (who at least got to keep his titles until he died). Draw your own conclusions.
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| Hohenschwangau, from the town below |
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| The main entrance into the court yard |
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| Ya'll know I have a thing for funny statues |
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| Neuschwanstein, coming through the clouds, as seen from Hohenschwangau |
Anyway, Hohenschwangau is where Ludwig grew up when the family wasn't in Munich. He spent a lot of time there as an adult as well. The family still owns this castle, and to my mind it's more of a "real" castle, a little more authentic. They have a lot of the original furnishings and decorations and stuff. The walls are covered in murals (depicting a variety of things but frequently the story of the swan knight) that still have all their vivid color because Maximillian had the good sense to have a clear protective coating applied on top of the paint. Apparently the way they lived was the queen had her floor, the king had his directly above it, and they put the kids in a separate building. Nice right? Max travelled to Turkey and loved it so much that he had his wife's bedroom fitted up with columns and Turkish-style decor so she could experience it too. He was very romantic: in his bedroom he had stars on the ceiling with tiny crystals so the stars would glow if you put a candle on the floor at night. Sound strange for a guy sleeping on a different floor than his wife? No worries: there's a secret door in the king's bedroom that leads down to the queen's. Most of what I marveled at though were the ornate pieces they had on display. Gigantic solid gold centerpieces, silver replicas of famous fountains, an ivory and gold cabinet with the coat of arms of each Bavarian district. One of the Russian czars gave Ludwig a cross for his chapel made entirely out of lapis lazuli. Someone gave Luitpold (the uncle) a gold statue of Diana the huntress on a green marble mountain because he like hunting.
I had some downtime before my next tour, so I wandered a bit, looked around the shops and such. Then after buying my mommy a present (it's a surprise! so she'll just have to guess) I started up the mountain. This is no wussy hill. This is a mountain and it is quite a trek. It's not very far, but it is very steep. Either bring a water bottle with you or be prepared to pay for the shuttle or horse-drawn carriage. I was especially glad to have my water bottle after I decided to go see Mary's Bridge. What can I say, my parents have raised a hiker. I'm sure it has magnificent views, but it was so cloudy all I saw was white. Down in the ravine some 150-200 ft below us (my mother would have hated this bridge), there was a nice waterfall. You can get an even better view of the waterfall if you go down a gazillion stairs to this sort of lookout point. I was quite glad I went down the stairs until I started to go back up them again.
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| Hohenschwangau from the bridge (it was really really foggy) |
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| The waterfall, from the bottom of the gazillion stairs |
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| Apparently this is the thing to do. I however refrained because I am a girl scout and I leave nature the way I find it. |
Clouds were pretty much the order of the day. They made it somewhat difficult to get good pictures. It did add to the whole fairy tale aspect of it all though. Neuschwanstein is literally like walking into every fairy tale you've ever heard. The windows of one room were open and some clouds billowed in: I seriously felt like I was in heaven. God, if you're taking requests, I would like my room to look like Neuschwanstein. The sad thing with this castle (and most of the castles Ludwig built) was that it was never finished. Ludwig only lived there 172 days and he never saw it without scaffolding. The parts that he did finish are beyond description though. The throne room looks like a Byzantine church and its floor has a mosaic with over 2 million tile pieces. There's no throne though; it never got built (stupid stingy government). The Singing Hall is also amazing. The walls are painted with murals telling the story of Perzival the Grail King (the father of Lohengrin the Swan Knight). Actually most of the walls in the castle are depicting the story of somebody. St. George and the Dragon was clearly a favorite. The king's bedroom is probably my favorite room. It took a team of woodworkers 4 years to finish all the carving in that room alone. You can see into his bathroom and it gives new meaning to "the porcelain throne". It literally looks like a wooden throne with a leather seat except that there's a lid. That's the other thing about Ludwig: he liked his modern conveniences. The whole castle was built with modern plumbing (for the time), electric lighting, and central heating. He also had a telephone, but the only place he could call was the post office since nobody else in Bavaria had one. He also had a state-of-the-art kitchen and a nifty way of calling his servants. He would press a button which would sound a bell in the servants' waiting room and turn on a light telling them where to go. Not bad for the 19th century. I spent most of the tour with my mouth open; Ludwig had a flair for the ornate. It's sad he didn't really get to enjoy it. I mean, he built a fake grotto complete with waterfall for the acting out of of Wagner's operas, and it never got used. He never saw a performance in the Singing Hall. He never got to hold a banquet there. He never even got to finish building the thing, let alone decorating it. The guy created something beautiful but never got the chance to see his vision come to life.
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| It was not this hard to see I swear, but my camera skills are lacking. |
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| The front entrance to the castle |
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| Around noon the clouds dissipated a bit and I got a better view of the castle from the town below |
Before we feel too bad for him though I will tell you this funny story. He and the sister of Empress Elizabeth of Austria (Empress Sisi), Sophie, had a thing for like forever. They got engaged and then after 8 months he broke it off. By mail. Without a reason. Can you imagine? "Dear Sophie, It's over. ~Ludwig". Jerk. This may have contributed to the insanity accusations. Oh and the cinematic romance between him and Sisi? Completely made up.
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