Vic & Vicki's European Vacation: In the Palace of Mad King Ludwig

OK, I REALLY fell down in my posting! We're back home now, but I'm going to go ahead and document the rest of our trip anyway!

2 Oct 2007
While it rained overnight, by the time we were ready to go, the clouds had cleared and it was another beautiful day in Deutschland! We did the short 15 minute walk to the bus station and boarded RVO bus number 1 for Hohenschwangau. By car it’s about a one hour ride but we decided to just take the two hour bus instead so we could both see the countryside instead of just Vicki as the passenger – cheaper too! And it was a lovely ride – here are some of the views out of the bus.

We arrived at Hohenschwangau and bought our tickets for the castle tours but it didn’t start until 1:45 so we walked around the area and took some pictures. The Hohenschwangau Schloss (palace) was the “getaway” place for the Bavarian royal family when they wanted to get out of town for awhile – nice little country place, huh?

Everywhere in the castle are images of swans – the name of the town means place of the swans -and Vicki thought this fountain with swans spitting water was cool.

I on the other hand liked the symbol of Barvaria – the lion!

Inside, we were not allowed to take any pictures but I got this one when the guide wasn’t looking. Vicki thought the crown molding was cool & I also got part of the swan chandelier – again with the swans, huh? This family really had a thing about swans!

One thing the guide did allow us to photograph was the view out the window, which was stunning:

Looks like something out of a picture book doesn’t it?

After touring Hohenschwangau castle, it was on to the main event, Neuschwanstein. This was the castle that King Ludwig built up on the hill above his parents place. It’s about a mile up a steep hill. On the walk up, we stopped and took this picture:

King Ludwig built Neuschwanstein here not for defensive reasons, but because he liked the view! Disney used this castle as the model for the castle in his Cinderella animated feature and also the castle he built in Disneyland. Again, no pictures inside, but here are some views of the outside and the vistas that I could take:

This is also the castle that got Ludwig his nickname of “Mad King Ludwig”. Neuschwanstein was so elaborate and expensive that the legislature was in the process of deposing him from the throne by having him declared insaine – he basically ran the country into bankruptcy. Within 3 days of being deposed, as the legislature was getting ready to imprison him for the rest of his life, he was found mysteriously dead in a lake in Munich. The family was made responsible for paying back the debt that Ludwig had run up (it took over 30 years) and Neuschwanstein was taken over by the state, which made it a museum open to the public which it has been since.

On the ride back, we saw several para-gliders soaring in the mountains. Here’s one above the castle (over on the left, by the tree):

And here is a group closer to the ground with one about to hit their landing spot:

In addition, we saw several really cool examples of Bavarian buildings decorated with paintings on the side. This is a good one advertising a shoe store: