Day 196: Tuesday 30 September – Bavaria: Ludwig’s Schlosses and Wieskirche, by Ken

The tramp down Mount Jenner on Sunday was still having a noticeable effect. We both still had very tight calves and quads. The long walk to the amenities block (we had parked about as far away as it was possible to get) helped to loosen them a bit, but we were both far from right.

At 7:00 I drove Smarty towards the camping ground owner’s house thinking I could sit in Smarty and use wi-fi. I couldn’t, I had to take the chair right next to the house that I had used yesterday. There was a message from BNZ saying the deposit I had paid for our accommodation in Goa had been returned as the payee’s account didn’t exist. I passed the message on to Clemente in Goa. I sent Sue an Ecard for her birthday tomorrow.

The sky had a light overcast first thing, but heavy cloud seemed to be building away to the north. Jane decided not to hang last night’s laundry out, instead we just hung our towels under the awning after we had showered.

We were on the road in Smarty at 9:00 heading for Hohenschwangau about 80km away. Our route took us along an autobahn where we experienced our first taste of German driving on roads without a speed limit. While Smarty burbled along at a comfortable 110kph we were left standing by BMWs and Audis rocketing past us. It was difficult to judge how fast some were travelling, but it must have been at least 160kph.

We left the autobahn after about 20km and took roads through farming country with cows grazing in neatly manicured pastures. We passed through lots of villages, the architecture was still alpine and lots of houses were decorated with frescoes.

There's Waikato Supporters in Germany!

Church Near Hohenschwangau

It was just on 10:00 when we parked in Hohenschwangau. The village was already busy with tourists pouring out of lots of tour busses. After an hour in Smarty it took a few minutes to get our stiff legs going again, we walked up to the ticket office for the two castles and museum we wanted to visit. It was a masterpiece of German organisation and simply buying three tickets was completely out of the organiser’s psyche. We were given a ticket for a guided tour No.141 in English of Schloss Hohenchwangen at 11:25, another for Tour No. 465 of Schloss Neuschwanstein at 13:25 and a third for the museum of Bavarian Kings that we could visit any time up to 19:00. With the tickets came a pamphlet with instructions to be in the courtyard of each castle to begin tours. Also, to be there on time otherwise “you miss the tour. No refund!” We saw from the pamphlet that guided tours were given in German and English and audio tours were available in 12 languages. A complex timetable of guided and audio tours appeared on video screens, one tour or another seemed to start every five minute.

Tour Options

We had a bit of time to kill before our first tour and walked down to Lake Alpsee. Looming on the hill above us was Schloss Hohenchwangen. We took a seat by the lake for a while. Standing up again was painful, our leg muscles were definitely not happy.

Lake Alpsee

Schloss Hohenschwangau

We walked up a steep winding road to the Schloss Hohenschwangau arriving in plenty of time for our 11:25 tour – we had heeded the warnings! We watched the minutes tick away on a video screen next to some turnstiles. On the dot of 11:25 Tour Number 141 appeared on the screen and we made our way through the turnstiles where we were directed to enter the castle and wait in the hall for our guide. Our guide was a Nigella Lawson look-alike (unfortunately, photographs were not permitted inside the castle, so there is no record of her.

Here's some shots taken outside the castle.

Schloss Kitchen

Neuschwanstein From Hohenschwangau

Schloss Hohenschwangau was bought as a ruin by Maximilian II, Ludwig II’s father. Maximillian rebuilt it in a neo- Gothic style and the family used it as a summer home. Ludwig spent much of his childhood there.

Ludwig unexpectedly became king aged 18 on the death of his father in 1863 and a few years later he withdrew to Hohenschwangau and had it changed to his liking. Amongst other things he had the ceiling of his bedroom painted as heaven complete with stars – candlelight projecting through holes in the ceiling. Our tour took us around about the one third of the castle that had been restored. We saw Ludwig’s bedroom, complete with star studded ceiling,  and a bedroom used by Richard Wagner on frequent visits after Ludwig became his lifelong patron. The rooms were richly decorated and furnished, Ludwig first heard the legend of Lohengrin, the Swan Knight, at Hohenschwangau and frescos on the theme decorate the house. The castle had a warm, homely feel to it.

The timing of the tours ran like German clockwork, every now and again we came across the 11:30 and 11:35 tour groups with their German speaking guides.

After our tour we had time to visit the gift shop where we bought a small stein as a reminder of Germany. In an annex to the gift shop we were able to see the castle’s restored kitchen’s. Then we walked back down into the town and took a bus up to a terminus above Schloss Neuschwanstein. From the terminus we took a short walk up a hill to the Marinebrücke where an ornate iron footbridge providing a fantastic view of the castle.

Schloss Neuschwanstein Seen From Marinebrucke

Jane on Marinebruche

Marinebrucke Seen From Schloss Neuschwanstein

Lake Alpsee and Schloss Hohenschwangau From Schloss Neuschwanstein

Schloss Hohenschwangau From Schloss Neuschwanstein

We walked down to the castle, again arriving in good time for our 13:25 tour. A group of schoolboys were eager to get through the turnstiles ahead of their allotted time but the gates were obviously programmed not to allow people through until their proper time. As before, our tour number came up spot on time and, as before, we were asked to enter the castle and wait for our guide. Also, as before, photography was not allowed inside the castle.

In 1867 Ludwig decided to create a German medieval castle on a peak opposite Schloss Hohenschwangau. By then Ludwig was on a roll, in 1868 he embarked on the construction of a small palace on the site of hishunting lodge at Linderhof in the style of Louis XIV’s summer residence at Trianon in the gardens of Versailles, Ludwig being a great admirer of Louis XIV. Then in 1878 construction started on a palace at Herrenchiemsee with a façade that was the exact replica of Versailles and an interior that had some of Versailles’ features, e.g. a hall of mirrors. The palace also hadgrounds containing some of the features of Versailles.

Schloss Neuschwanstein From Hohenschwangau

Entrance to Schloss Neuschwanstein

This Couple Took Dozens of Selfies, But No Shots of the Castle!

Neuschwanstein was designed by Eduard Riedel and Georg Dollman (who went on to design Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee) based on drawings by Christian Jank, a theatre designer. The castle wasn’t ready for Ludwig to move into until 1884 and even then it was unfinished. We were aware the castle was a complete contrast to Schloss Hohenschwangau. Whereas the latter was a warm, homely place, Neuschwanstein was a complete flight of fancy. One of the most bizarre features was a vast throne room modeled on the Bizantine church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. (Having seen both, Ludwig’s version was much more ornate). His throne, however, was never built as he died before the castle was completed. His bedroom was also something else with an ornately carved wooden bed in Gothic style with a wooden canopy resembling an ornate church altar. Other idiosyncrasies were a candlelit grotto and a telephone connected to Neuschwanstein. The highlight of the rooms we saw was undoubtedly the amazing Singer’s Hall that takes up the whole of the top floor. The decoration can only be described as fabulous and would be an amazing sight at night illuminated by many candelabra. Perversely, however, the hall was never conceived as a concert hall, rather as a monument and concerts were never held there in Ludwig’s time.

With the notable exception of the Throne Room and the Singer’s Hall the castle was a dour place – dark and uninviting. Our guide told us that wouldn’t have mattered to Ludwig. He had become a recluse and nocturnal to boot, going to bed at sunrise and eating breakfast at dusk. That also explained the absence of a dining table of any size, Ludwig did not invite guests to the castle.

By 1885 Ludwig was insolvent, his building programme had cost well over 30 million marks at a time when his annual income was 4 million and he was suppotying Richard Wagner and the Bayreuth festival as well as donating large sums to Munich theatres and giving generous gifts. By 1886 he was in debt to the tune of 14 million marks and rumours begin to spread that his appetite for building monuments and his increasing withdrawal from public life suggested Ludwig was insane.

In 1875 Otto, Ludwig’s brother, was declared insane and in 1886 it suited the government to declare Ludwig insane. This was done without him being seen by the psychiatrist who made the declaration and without Ludwig’s physicians being consulted. Ludwig was taken to the Castle of Berg near Lake Starnberg. The next day he and Bernhard von Gudden, the psychiatrist didn’t return from a walk near the lake and their bodies were found in shallow water in the lake. Ostensibly, they drowned, but many believe this was not the case. What a sad end for a man who may have been flawed, but who created some wonderful buildings. Construction of Neuschwanstein was terminated on Ludwig’s death and never completed. Nevertheless, what he created is probably the godfather of fairy tale castles.

We started to walk back down to the village stopping at a restaurant for a late lunch. I had pork with pasta in a mushroom sauce while Jane went for something as Bavarian as possible – wurst and fries followed by yeast pudding which came as a white heavy yeasty hemisphere swimming in custard.

Jane's Yeast Pudding

We continued back to the village where we visited the Museum Der Bayerische Könige which gave the history of the Kings of Bavaria. It was yet another very good German exhibition with a free and very informative audio guide.

We set a course for home taking a detour to the hamlet of Wies to visit the Wieskirche. Wies became a place of pilgrimage in the 18^th century after a farmer’s wife spotted tears coming from an abandoned figure of Christ. In 1745 a church was built that now attracts enormous numbers of tourists each year. Externally, the church didn’t look particularly special, but the interior just blew our socks off. It was absolutely stunningly decorated in the Rococo style in pastel shades. It is so good it is regarded as the pinnacle of the Rococo style and features on UNESCO’s World Heritage list.

Wieskirche - Rather Plain Exterior

But the interior was just fantastic!

It was 18:45 by the time we got back to Mabel where we settled for a cheese and ham roll after our late lunch.

Day 195: Monday 29 September – Bavaria: Konigssee to Starnbergersee, by Ken

After our tramp down Mount Jenner yesterday we both slept very soundly. Getting out of bed was a struggle though, our calves and quads were very tight. We really have to do something about our fitness.

A heavy mist hung over the camping ground at first light. It looked like being another fine day.

Jane walked down to the laundry with the remainder of our washing. She returned saying no-one else was there but the machine had a load of dry washing in it. It appeared the German habit of putting towels on the best loungers by the swimming pool extends to washing machines.

With nothing set up outside Mabel was ready for the road by 9:00. But first we wanted to visit McDonalds to use the wi-fi hotspot. Jane hadn’t caught up with the world yesterday and was anxious to fire up her iPad. She took off in Smarty while I finished getting ready and walked down a few minutes later. When I got there Jane wasn’t at all happy. McDonald’s coffee machine was kaput and their hot spot worked on the basis of sending an access code to your mobile – Jane’s mobile phone battery was flat! She headed back to Mabel in a huff while I tried to log on to wi-fi – twice! I couldn’t get an access code. On my way back to the camping ground I met Jane in Smarty. She had got some charge into her phone and was heading back. I gave her the bad news about the access code. She got into even more of a huff.

Before leaving, we needed to pay, dump our grey waste and fill with water. There was no-one in the camping ground’s office so we drove on to the motorhome service point. We were still struggling with the concept of having to pay for fresh water and not at all impressed when the machine failed to deliver not a single drop in exchange for our €1.

I walked back to pay, my mood wasn’t helped when I saw the bill included €25.40 for electricity and the total of €193.40 equated to more than NZ$53 per day. That was one of our most expensive camping grounds, but we did get a small piece of white chocolate as a thank you. There was a British registered motorhome parked outside the office with a car attached via a very heavy A-Frame. The owner told me he had made the A-frame from a caravan draw bar and it was very heavy, also the brakes on the car worked just twice off the vacuum reservoir, after that he had to pump the motorhome brake pedal to apply the car’s brakes. Interestingly, they are changing the law in the UK later in the year such that the only A-frames that will be legal are the lightweight versions like ours with proper vacuum systems mounted in the car.

The drive to Starnbergersee was uneventful although we were surprised to find satnav took us north east back into Austria to pick up the E10 motorway near Salzburg from where we headed west and back into Germany. 

Back Into Austria

Then Germany Again

Austrian Toll Charges (Looks as though we should have been paying toll charges for Mabel) 

We almost reached the ring road south of Munich before leaving the motorway and travelling cross-country to Starnbergersee and Camping Beim Fischer. A young woman with very good English that she attributed to ‘the German education system’ showed me around the camping ground. It was very pleasant with lots of grass and trees and very quiet. The downside was the only wi-fi was near the owner’s house and electricity was controlled by slot meters! About 3km before reaching Camping Beim Fischer we had passed another camping ground on the shores of the lake. We decided to backtrack and see what that had to offer. It turned out to be not a lot, pitches were very cramped and there was no wi-fi. Worse, in order to leave we had to unhitch Smarty so we could do a three point turn in Mabel.

Church At Anger We Passed En Route

Back at Camping Beim Fischer the young woman had left. It turned out she had been holding the fort for her grandmother, the owner. Unlike her grand daughter she had no English but we got by very well in German. She was lovely and couldn’t have been more helpful.

We found ourselves a good pitch, albeit a long way from the facilities. Once established we walked back to the house and sat on a bench outside using the wi-fi. Inter-alia, I emailed BNZ asking them to trace the deposit I had paid for our stay in Goa which still hadn’t arrived there.

For our evening meal Jane cooked a very tasty lamb with fruit on cous cous.

Today's Trip (186km)

Day 194: Sunday 28 September – Bavaria: A Walk On The Jenner Mountain, by Ken

There was a thick fog hanging over the camping ground when we got up, the temperature was less than 5°. I thought it was a portent of another fine day ahead, Jane wasn’t so sure.

Jane set off for the facilities taking our rubbish with her. She was soon back laughing so much she couldn’t speak. It took a while before she was able to blurt out her zapper for the door to the facilities was in a dumpster and the rubbish bag was in her hand! She needed my help to retrieve the zapper. We retrieved it by Jane almost disappearing head first into the bin while I hung onto her legs to stop her falling all the way in. Unfortunately, the circumstances didn’t permit a photograph to be taken of this lapse in Jane’s coordination.

Early Morning In The Camping Ground As Seen From Mabel

As dawn broke the fog started to clear slowly and by 9:00 there was mist hanging around some of the mountains, but lots of blue sky. We drove the short distance to the large car park at Konnigssee. There an elderly German couple were trying to buy a parking ticket but couldn’t get the machine to work. They had left their discount card in the slot, I removed it and pressed the OK button which gave them a ticket for a day’s parking. I didn’t understand what they said to me, but it wasn’t thank you and it appeared that wasn’t what they wanted. Another elderly German couple became involved, it appeared they only wanted two hours parking but they had paid €2 which was enough for a day and the machine didn’t give change. I left them to it and walked to another machine. The two couples were still pressing buttons five minutes later when Jane and I had collected our gear and locked up Smarty.

We walked the short distance to the Jennerbahn cable car station where I asked for two return tickets to Bergstation 1170 metres above and close to the summit of the Jenner mountain. Our plan was to take a two hour walk down from the top to the cable car’s Mittelstation and decide whether to ride the rest of the way down, or walk. Standing in the queue for the cable car I looked at the ticket and spotted it was only for one person, I had asked for zweimal bitte, and Jane had heard me. I had to go back to the by then much longer queue for tickets to get a second ticket.

We rejoined the queue for the cable car. There were a number of men in traditional lederhosen, one of the men had a large case that we thought contained a brass musical instrument. There was also a woman wearing a dirndle dress. Jane wondered whether there was an event happening on the mountain.

The cable cars were two person gondolas. The man put his large case in one and he and his mate, also in lederhosen, climbed in another. Our gondola climbed rapidly on its way to the Mittelstation 570 metres above. Below us were cows, some apparently dozing in the early morning sun, above us paragliders were drifting slowly downwards. The views got better and better as we climbed, the northern end of Lake Konigssee lay directly below us and to the north we could see the Eagle’s nest perched on the top of Kehlstein.

On Our Way

Looking Down The Valley Towards Bercthesgaden

Reservoir In The Mountains

At Mittelstation our gondola detached from the main cable and as we moved slowly forward an attendant asked if we were going to Bergstation. I pointed up. There was no need to get out, our gondola continued a short distance and attached itself to a second cable. I still don’t know how they do that. The views on the 600 metre ascent to the top were quite breathtaking. What seemed a very long way below us we could see our camping ground with camper vans and caravans appearing as white specks.

At the cable car’s top station lots of people were sitting in the sunshine on a terrace eating and some were drinking beer at 10:30 in the morning. There were a few dogs there, including a liver coloured Labrador. A walk wound its way up to the summit of the Jenner mountain. It was only 74 metres above us, but we decided we would rather have gravity on our side and set off down a good track heading for Mittelstation, signed as being 2 hours away. 

Sunday Brunch in the Sun at Cable Car Top Station With Trampers Making Their Way To The Summit

Liver Coloured Lab

Setting Off Down The Mountain

Lots of Paragliders Out Today

We hadn’t gone very far when we saw a pinnacle of rock surmounted by a cross off to the left of our track. People were perched on the top of the pinnacle. We decided we should go and investigate. A track led across a narrow ridgeline to the base of the pinnacle. The track wasn’t too hard going, but a bit of rock climbing was required to scale the last 10 mteres, or so, of the very steep face beneath the summit. We both managed to get to the top only to find there was a near vertical drop of hundreds of metres off the top. Neither of us could pluck up the courage to stand on the top and after a few minutes we clambered back down. The descent was a lot harder than going up as it wasn’t always obvious where to put our feet.

Pinnacle

Jane Nearing The Summit

A very short distance along the main track we came to a grassy slope where people were gathering. Men and women were unloading musical instruments from a trailer attached to a fire brigade Land Rover and carrying them to the top of the slope. We climbed to the top where musicians were setting up music stands and tuning up their brass instruments. Most of the men were dressed in traditional lederhosen, the women in the group were more conventionally dressed. As we watched more musicians arrived including the two men that had travelled up in the cable car just ahead of us unpacked a gleaming tuba (I think) from his backpack. Others arrived with the bulbpus bit protruding from backpacks. There was what appeared to be a stone altar covered in a cloth with candles and greenery. A while later a woman arrived dressed in traditional dress and then a monk in a brown habit. The woman handed out hymn sheets to what was by than a sizeable crowd that included the liver coloured Labrador and its owners. A church service was about to start 1700 metres up in the mountains. We stayed for the first hymn, the combination of the brass band and the congregation’s singing were simply amazing.

Pinnacle As Seen From Church Service

Band Setting Up at 1100 metres (altar in foreground)

Our walk wound its way downwards and anti-clockwise around the mountain. The route meant we got an ever changing view as we walked. At one point we passed under the cableway that had taken us up to the top. Nearing Mittelstation we came to cows grazing in a meadow, some were wearing bells, a uniquely alpine sound. We passed a farmstead that we assumed was there for the summer pastures and wouldn’t be occupied during the winter months.

We were quite sore by the time we reached Mittelstation – Jane’s hips were aching and my knees were distinctly wobbly. It was approaching 13:00, we decided to have lunch and then decide whether we would take the cable car back down, or continue walking for another two hours. We took a table outside at the Gaststätte next to Mittelstation, we both ate Wiener Schnitzel and potatoes which turned out to be fries, it seemed to me it was the German equivalent of fish and chips. We felt a lot better having eaten and rested. We thought it would be sensible to take the cable car back down, but being sensible isn’t a strong point of ours, so we decided to walk.

Nearing Mittelstation

Lunch Break

With the benefit of hindsight, we should have taken the easy option. We had been walking much less than an hour down a track that was quite steep in places when we both started to struggle – Jane’s hips were complaining and both my knees had a tendency to buckle sideways. We sat on a bench for a while and felt a lot better – for a while. In all we stopped at four benches to ease our aching limbs. We talked about how unfit we had become during our trip. Jane hadn’t had her usual visits to the gym and my daily walks with Ziggy in the bush were now a long time ago. Jane thought we should both sign on at her gym when we get back. That wasn’t a bad idea at all. We made it back down to the base station in just about two hours by which time our joints had freed up somewhat.

House Towards The End Of Our Walk

We were both very thirsty and I was tempted to stop for a beer at one of the biergartens we passed between the station and the car park. I managed to resist that and settled for a lot of water and cups of tea back at Mabel.

We sat and did nothing for a while. It wasn’t long before Jane felt sufficiently recovered to take a trip to the camping ground’s laundry to put one load of washing through. I was content to sit and read.

We weren’t very hungry after our schnitzel and fries at lunchtime. Our evening meal was a tin of Croatian bean soup, this one came with small pieces of sausage, and a slice of toast each.