Castles, Woodcarvers and Ski Jumps

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Geo: 47.4923, 11.0862

Grandma got no sleep, Grandpa got about a half night's sleep and Brennan slept like a log!

We made great coffee at the apartment and ate lebkuchen and clementines for breakfast. We were out of the apartment by 7:30 because we had a very busy day of touring ahead of us. Our apartment was on a street with a school and we noticed quite young children walking or "scooting", unaccompanied -- nice to see.

We arrived at King Ludwig II's castle, Neuschwanstein about 9:15. We purchased a tour ticket for 10:50am. They said it would take 40 minutes to walk up to the castle, but the mile trek took only 20 minutes. We had lots of time to spare so we took in the incredible views, read the signs and took pictures on the one side open to us. At exactly 10:50, prompted by the digital board, we entered the castle.

This fairytale castle is amazing and represented many of Ludwig's heroes who were either fierce warriors or political and powerful leaders. Some of them were depicted in Wagner's operas who Ludwig admired. Swans were on the door handles, in the paintings, ceramics, faucets, etc. sadly, much of the castle was not finished when Ludwig died and remains unfinished.

He had this huge, beautiful castle to be used solely by him. He spent all of his time alone with his heroes surrounding him on the painted walls. Ludwig only lived there for six months. He died either by suicide or was murdered. He was never happy because he held no political power like his predecessors had. At the end of the tour we went outside on the balcony where there was a view of the lake and Alps that was stunning. Though the tour was great, our tour guide was quite dry.

We visited the Gift Shop and, amazingly, found Brennan's souvenir, a German incense smoker with a pyramid and a train. He named the smoker Hans! We also purchased a Neuschwanstein 500-piece puzzle.

As we walked back down, we shared the road with a steady flow of horse drawn carriages; all filled with a dozen or more passengers.

Ludwig's childhood castle, Hohenschwangau, was on the hillside across from Neuschwanstein. We did not visit it, but it looked more like a typical castle.

We drove away from the castles on a tiny, curvy road through beautiful countryside with green pastures, and wooden hay sheds, all surrounded by the Alps. We headed to Oberammergau; famous for its woodcarvings, beautiful painted buildings and Passion Play, performed every 10 years.

We were starving so headed to a great pizzeria, La Montagnards, where we shared two NY style pizzas and a salad. We commented about the international experience it was: an Asian server, serving Italian food to Americans in a Germany!

After lunch we wandered the town and went into several woodcarving shops. There were some beautiful pieces, but we settled on two small signs for the Columbia Falls bathroom -- Daman and Herren. Then we went in search of some of the more famous frescoes painted on the buildings. Most of the shops and houses were beautifully painted and we finally found Handel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood as we left town.

We had a picturesque mountainous ride to Garmisch-Patenkirchen, which is down in the valley. We had been to Garmisch often when Dave was in the Army and actually learned to ski there. When we lived in Germany, the Army had a large lodge there which cost a very minimal amount -- quite a perk! It is such a wonderful ski town, that the Olympics were held there in 1936.

We drove to the Olympic Stadium and walked up to the three ski jumps. The largest of the three is so intimidating -- you have to wonder how anyone can go flying off this structure. Brennan was even intimidated, "you could die doing that!".

We checked into our very pretty accommodations at Gasthof zum Rassen, directly across from the villages' beautiful church. Zimmer #5 was very large corner room with many windows looking onto the street below and directly across to the church -- could not have been a better location.

We checked out some of the nearby shops. One of them was a junky souvenir shop where we pushed all the buttons of the various yodeling stuffed Bavarians and animals. Evidently the shopkeeper was having a bad day because he yelled at Brennan?!!

One shop that got our attention was a huge chocolate store with a counter filled with every imaginable combination of chocolate goodies. Brennan chose a caramel/chocolate piece that he enjoyed for a few days. This shop had a cooking class early in the evening and a wine pairing class later.

Our gasthof's wifi was down so we walked to a large hotel to use their wifi to send a note to Cornelius so that we could make arrangements to meet him on Friday.

We walked past a really cozy restaurant that we decided we would return to for dinner after we spent a little time in the room (too much pizza, too late)!

We played huckly buck until we decided it was time for dinner. When we went into our previously found restaurant, we decided it was too loud and noisy so we went back to our gasthof. Sue had a beef-based soup with dumplings and Dave and Brennan had, what else?, schnitzel!

Back up to the room for some more huckly buck! Off to bed!

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