Bavaria or The Madness of King Ludwig

The view towards the Hohe Schloss from our hotel roof

We had an awesome weekend in Bavaria, it's weird, we were only there for 2 days and yet it feels much longer, especially given how much we managed to see.  The main reason for going was to visit Neuschwanstein castle, but we managed to fit in heaps of other stuff.  I think the main reason we could see so much is because we had a car, not that Dave or I were driving, a friend of ours had hired it.  The autobahns are as scary as you can imagine, I'm so glad it wasn't me driving, I don't think I would have managed it!  Some of the other drivers on the road were really quite insane, they would be trying to overtake you before you had completely exited their lane.  Let's just say I arrived at our destination completely drenched in sweat.  But we survived and had a great weekend, and that's the important thing.

Traditional Bavarian band

The main destination was Neuschwanstein castle, which is new Swan Castle, for those of you who have read my previous blog, yes I have been here before.  On the way to Fussen from Munich we stopped off at Starnberg Lake, where there were a couple of very typical Bavarian villages along the shores.  As an aside this is actually the lake where King Ludwig drowned, but that's Bavaria for you, it seems to be dominated by this guy.

Whilst driving along we stopped off at this massive park along the lake and went for a bit of a stroll.  In the distance we could hear what sounded like a concert, walking a bit further we came upon a sailing regatta and the pictured brass band playing to the sailors.  This was about 10am in the morning and it was good to see that nearly all the band players had massive steins in their hands.  How Bavarian!

The unassuming outside of the Wieskirche

The over-the-top interior of the Wieskirche

Driving further on we came upon a sign to a UNESCO world heritage site, it was for the Wieskirche, which is this slightly bizarre church out in the countryside, surrounded by massive carparks.  From the outside it looks a fairly standard white building, but then inside it's got the most amazing Rocco interior.  The artists just got completely carried away with it, gilding all over the place and wonderful sculptures, I can see why they might need the massive carparks in the high season.

After that it was straight onto Fussen, which I really recommend if you are visiting this area.  It's just like a Bavarian disneyworld, with all the hotels totally playing up their Bavarian-ness.

The impressive painted walls

View towards the mountains

Fussen lies on the shores of the Forggensee, which is actually a man-made lake, built to control the spring melt, apparently it is emptied out in October to get ready for the next spring.  It was quite nice wandering around the town, the Lech River flows through it, into the Forgensee, and it was quite a raging river, I can appreciate why you might want to control it.

What we were really there for though was the castles (or Schlosses) apparently in German their definitions are really strict as to what makes a castle (it has to have a dungeon or something).  We managed to get along to see the Hohe Schloss in the middle of the town, which is a former summer residence of the bishops of Augsburg.  It was built in the late 13th to 14th centuries, so

Fussen was so wonderfully Bavarian

pretty old.  When you walk into the main courtyard you notice these impressive gables and shutters, but upon closer inspection you can see that they are just painted on.  At first I thought it was some modern attempt at cost-cutting, but then I discovered that the painting was actually done in 1499.  It definitely doesn't look that old!

But we all knew that the real reason we were there was to see massive numbers of castles, we managed to pack in 3 in a day, plus a sneaky border crossing into Austria.  It was only visiting these three castles that I truly started to appreciate the madness of King Ludwig.

Unfortunately you aren't allowed to take any photos inside the castles, which is a shame, as I think it is the insane decorations which really show Ludwig II at his true potential.

Schloss Hohenschwangau

The pretty swan lake between the castles

The first castle we saw was the Schloss Hohenschwangau, which was Ludwig II's childhood castle.  This was built by his father, it seems that this family really had a mania for castles.  These castles are all relatively new, this one, the oldest we saw, was only built in the 1830's.  It was even electrified in the early 1900's.  This was basically the summer hunting residence for the family.  And it sure was in a pretty spot, overlooking the swan lake.  There were all sorts of hidden passages and secret doors throughout the place, mostly so that the servants could come and go unseen, refuelling the stoves all over the place.

There was also a secret passageway between the King and Queen's bedrooms, but once the King died and Ludwig II takes over he adds another layer of freakiness.  He gets a night scene painted on the ceiling of his bedroom, and gets holes cut where the stars were, so that servants could get up in there and light candles.  It's a really early version of those glow in the dark stickers you can buy.

Neuschwanstein castle, in the mist

The cookie-cutter Bavarian village by the castles

That was about as freaky as it got in this castle, it was onto the next one, about 300m away, where the freakiness ratcheted up a notch.  This is the classic, Neuschwanstein castle, which everyone comes to see.  It was here that Ludwig II could really let loose with his scary Wagner obsession.  At this point he was king of Bavaria, so could really open the Treasury purse strings.  Every room in the castle was devoted to a different scene in one of Wagner's operas, instead of a grand ballroom there was a theatre, with a stage and the scenery for yet another one of Wagner's operas.

These castles are all visited at a breakneck speed, you can only go as part of a tour group and they really bang the groups through.  Because there are not so many English groups, the ones they do have are massive.  It was only Neuschwanstein that was really bad though, it being the most popular by far.

View from Neuschwanstein

We had noticed on the way in, that there was a cable car up into the mountains in the next village over, and even though there was a bit of low hanging cloud, we thought why not.  You climb up to 1720m, and from there you get a great view into the Alps and out over the flat lands around Fussen.  Apparently it is a 2-3 hour walk from the top to the castles, but we didn't partake.  There is also a launching pad for hang gliders, which I have to say looked particularly scary.

View from the top of the Tegelberg

Schloss Linderhof

After that it was a picturesque drive through the Alps, into Austria and then back out to the last castle of the day, Linderhof. This was the smallest of his palaces, and whilst Neuschwanstein was disturbing for the Wagner obsession, this castle was just plain disturbing.  It was modelled off Versailles, and hanging inside were portraits of the French kings and queens, which was kind of strange.

Here, Ludwig would sleep all day and then stay awake all night, principally so he wouldn't have to see anyone.  He lived entirely alone here (apart from the servants of course) and went out of his way to avoid human contact.  The dining room had a dumb waiter installed in the centre of the table so that the servants didn't have to enter the room.  Though he also made sure that there were 4 places set every meal so he could talk to his imaginary guests.  It was all pretty weird.  He had audience rooms built in the castle, even though he knew he would never allow anyone to use them.

The impressive gardens of the Schloss

After a few years of his incessant castle building he was massively in debt and the government couldn't handle bailing him out anymore.  So they had him declared insane and removed from his position.  And a few days later him and his psychiatrist were found drowned in a lake, all very suspicious.  One thing which I found interesting though is that not once during the three tours was it talked about that his younger brother had already been found insane, this was why when Ludwig was deposed his uncle took over, rather than his younger brother.