Fairytale Castles and Countryside - Bavaria, Germany

With a delicious local Italian meal in our bellies (funny how you tend towards the familiar!) and a good nights sleep in our first of many future Airbnb homes, we took off in our newly acquired set of wheels to the Bavarian countryside. There had been such a buildup to this part of the world that I honestly wondered if all the hype was justified. Wasn't I thrilled to see with my own eyes that indeed it was.

Our Munich accommodation hosts thought it interesting, and perhaps suspected a little OCD, that we had arrived from Australia with prepaid dates, times and jump the queue information for our first touristy stop. Personally I couldn't have been happier that we had received such great tips.

On arrival, the queue for tickets was SO long and slow moving whilst mine, on the other hand, was occupied by only me! This, and Graeme's early arrival, mentality allowed us to grab a coffee and relax by Alpsee lake, chatting to some other Australians who's 11 year old son had ended up in the drink after misinterpreting the slope of the descent on his way to hang out with ours...of course it occurred on "dad's watch".

This place was beautifully picturesque, a treat for the soul, at least until those 'click&tick' tourists wielding selfie sticks arrived.



Another lovely little family, white swans this time, came paddling by our little spot. I believe white swans are as iconic to this area as our black swans are to WA. Either way, I felt very lucky to see them, standing there in a beautiful part of the world with two of our own little signets.

At the last minute, with the advice of my own very available ticket lady, we decided to switch our tour from the more frequented fairytale Neuschwanstein Castle and instead opted to look through the older, more historic Hohenschwangau castle, the summer residence actually lived in by generations of the Bavarian royal family. Here, amongst these frescoed walls and ornate ceilings, Princes Ludwig and Otto grew up under the influence of romanticised architecture and folklore. It was in this castle that the future King Ludwig began his dreams of creating his own extraordinary masterpiece... Neuschwanstein Castle. In later years Walt Disney lifted the dreamy image and made it his own, making it home to his many fairytale characters including Tinkerbell.


We weren't permitted to take photos inside the castles so I am a little shaky with all the dates and details as I don't have the visual cues to jog my memory. However, I recall it being quite sensibly lavish, even restrained in a royal sort of way. Yes, there were frescoes of past battles painted upon the walls and ceilings, a handful of enormous, intricately detailed gold plated or solid silver table pieces (superfluous as many gifts from far off counties often are). Then, to counter all this pomp, there lay a simple silver platter, still holding the very loaf of bread 'gifted' to the family 100 years ago. I don't know, maybe they were gluten free?

The Hohenschwangau castle has been inhabited until recently by some cousin or other. There is one floor unavailable to the lowly tourist and remains 'empty'. The last of the family died aged 90 something, many years after having fitted the castle with electricity and the first privately used elevator in the country (he was wheelchair bound so kind of important if you have to live in a castle).

Also quite interestingly, the king's private quarters were not only lavishly painted and decorated with naked female figures, but also crystal stars affixed to the ceiling. In the evening, servants would light these from the next floor above so the king could sleep under the stars. When the mood arose and the king wished to visit the queen's chambers, there was a hidden door painted into the themed room that led through a secret passage to his conquest. How convenient for the king.

As the young Princes of Bavaria probably experienced, brotherly love waxes and wanes. We have had our fair share of this in our household to date so moments such as this are quite precious. The family dynamics are obviously skewed with Annabelle out of the picture (no pun intended) but whilst it's far from perfect, we are beginning to see the signs of a renewed kind of engagement between our princes.

With blood sugar levels rapidly declining and discovering we were not as organised for our picnic lunch as we'd planned, we procured some bread rolls from a Bavarian hot dog stall and borrowed a knife from a cafe and reclined on some lawn below the castle, away from all those retched tourists. Our own little title "eat, pLay, love" of sorts. It's these little moments that are memory makers.

Of course then that bubble burst and someone maybe didn't get enough of something, the world was against them and they cracked the sads...any guesses who that may have been? (Check the pic below for clues) However, moods aside, we couldn't be in the region and not at least view the worlds most beautiful castle...what was someone saying about click&tick?



Although the fabulous externals are impressive, the interiors of Neuschwanstein were never finished because King Ludwig spent too much money, went a little crazy and so 'his people' intervened and had he and his psycho-analyst taken away to a castle far, far away where they were both discovered in the local lake the very next day...dead! The castle was promptly opened to the public to pay off its debts. How convenient for the country.

So, anyway, back to us... We walked up above the castle to Mary's bridge and elbowed our way through the throng of selfie sticks to the other side where things were quite calm and serene. The view was truly beautiful and the glorious day allowed us a seemingly endless visual expanse.

A less travelled path further afield, and not for the faint hearted, saw us perching above both the castle and the selfie stick bridge. Amazing! Although we did need to keep a tight reign on our Braveheart and seemingly fearless Daniel.

Looking down (literally and figuratively) 

Then, what better way to end a fairytale than with a happy ending. On our descent from the glorious heights of Neuschwanstein, we spy a troop of akubra clad teens from CSHS! Thankfully having a rest(??) day and not having to lug instruments around, we searched for our other fledgling who, although weary from the climb (and was only half way up the mountain!) gladly met us with smiles and hugs.

One place I had really wanted to take the boys was The English Garden (we still aren't sure why Munich has an English garden) After a long day, and an even longer walk as we parked the car WAY too far away, the quote of the day from our fabulous, but currently tense driver...wrong side of the road, no spots available, fees everywhere;  
"I'm not reverse parking that car THREE times today!"

Eventually we found our way after many "where is it? how far is it? do you even know where we're going?" kind of questions, and enjoyed the long awaited show of surfers surfing the waves in the city river ('cause they can when that's all you've got as you're an inland country not a continent!). This was really entertaining and the boys were transfixed, watching as one dude dropped off, another would 'drop in' off the river bank.

Giant Daniel, midget surfer dude

Sure, it's no Green Cathedral, but pretty cool for a city

Fortunately, we had done so much walking, the food we ate consequently will hopefully not harden our arteries forever...they love their potatoes and oil here! Now I'm not much of a beer drinker but when in a German beer garden, do what the Germans do...perhaps it dissolves the oil?

 

Whilst Daniel set a very high bar for tightrope walking, and Patrick accepted the challenge, we were quite content to sit and sit and sit. I'm sure we could have matched them if we'd tried...after all we had actually shared the beer!