This is the part where we get the car! It was a hideous car:
The Citroen Picasso (Would Picasso approve? Debatable.)
Source: the intertubes
But boy it drove good! Keith did all the driving actually because it was a stick shift and Matt and I can't drive them. It saved us EURO30 to get a manual though.
So we got the car and drove on out of Munich. Soon, we were on the Autobahn! Most people drove at the same speed they normally would have if there were a speed limit (70-80MPH) but some people--man!--risk-takers--they drove FAST. Don't get in front of one of them, you'll feel before you see them barrelling up behind you.
We were driving that day to our next destination--a small village in the Austrian Alps called St Johann in Tyrol (meaning the Tyrol region of Austria). On the way we took in several of the most famous sites of Germany: Crazy King Ludwig's castles at Hohenshwangau and Schloss Neuschwanstein. These two castles, built within sight of each other were commissioned by the king, Ludwig II of Bavaria. I like this description of him from Wikipedia:
"Ludwig was notably eccentric in ways that made serving as Bavaria’s head of state problematic. He disliked large public functions and avoided formal social events whenever possible, and preferred a life of fantasy that he pursued with various creative projects. These idiosyncrasies caused tension with the king's government ministers, but did not cost him popularity among common Bavarians."
King Ludwig II of Bavaria
Source: Matt
One of these creative projects was Schloss (castle) Neuschwanstein (new swanstone). As you can see, it is highly whimsical and is very big and expensive. The design of the castle is an ode to the composer Richard Wagner, whom Ludwig (and at the time only Ludwig) loved, as 'a worthy temple for the divine friend who has brought salvation and true blessing to the world.'
The castle was begun in 1869 but before it was finished in 1886, King Ludwig was declared insane by a doctor who had never even examined him, arrested and taken away to Castle Berg. On the next day, he was found drowned in the nearby lake, along with his personal physician. It was considered an accident at the time, but no one really knows what happened.
So these two castles are shrouded in mystery and, when we arrived, shrouded in mist. It truly is something out of a fairy-tale.
Schloss Neuschwanstein
Source: the interwebs
We collected our tickets to see both castles in one day (more expensive, but when in Germany... Also, they came with English language guided tours and I love a guided tour). We saw Hohenschwangau first, which was a good thing because we got lots of information about both castles from our very good tour guide. It was a small group of about 8 people and we got to see pretty much the entire castle.
Schloss Hohenschwangau
Source: Wikipedia
One complaint we always had about fancy places like the Residenz is that they look like they'd be terribly uncomfortable to live in --they are so opulent you hardly want to touch anything, and all the rooms are extremely sparsely furnished, because that was the style for public rooms at the time. When we saw the Residenz I even said to Matt and Keith I thought that in addition to the richly decorated rooms containing a single chair, there must be other secret rooms where the families who inhabited these palaces actually spent their time. More sensible rooms with comfortable furniture, beds with blankets and pillows and--most crude but most necessary--bathrooms.
Hohenschwangau was a refreshing change. It was a summer hunting lodge for the royalty, but it was much smaller and much more comfortably casual than the Residenz (though still more opulent than where normal people live today). There were no 'state rooms' as such, just actually family rooms--bedrooms, dining rooms, libraries, childrens' playrooms, guestrooms--no bathrooms however, still too vulgar for a guided tour apparently. We all agreed that we would be delighted to live in such a place.
Then we had to get to Schloss Neuschwanstein which is annoyingly on the top of a major cliff which we had to walk up. The inside was... ridiculous. Three examples: First, there is an indoor artificial grotto, designed as a stage for some Wagner opera. Second, the throne room contains a chandelier which is a giant replica of the king's crown. Third, the king's bed was covered with carvings of all the great European church spires. It would be like sleeping in a nightmare.
When we had seen the castle, we walked up a little higher to a suspension bridge behind the castle just underneath this massive waterfall. It was pretty cool.
Schloss Neuschwanstein from the bridge
Source: Wikipedia
The three of us in front of and below Schloss Neuschwanstein
Source: Matt (and some other dude who we asked to take the picture)
So after the castles, back in the car. We were just on the boarder with Austria just north of the Alps, which seem to shoot straight up from the plains of Germany without any foothills. We got to a mountain, drove through a tunnel underneath it, and we were in Austria! Our destination--the village of St Johann in Tirol, the hostel above Bunny's Australian Pub. We drove and drove through amazing mountain passes, swooshing and zig-zagging, skating along cliff-edges where if we slid off we would have fallen a thousand feet down. Lucky, Keith is a very capable and confident driver.
Finally in the early evening we got to St Johann and navigated to Bunny's Pub... Which was clearly closed and under construction! Perhaps even out of business! So we wandered down to the pub next door, also Australian, and talked to the owner, an Aussie named Rogi, who called the Bunny's Pub people for us. Turns out it was just being renovated, and they had arranged to have their guests housed in a neighbouring hostel. This hostel turned out to be very nice and comfortable so we were pleased. It was also filled with Aussies and Kiwis, who are attracted there for adventure sports in the Alps. We were invited to participate in some adventure sports--parasailing, toboganning, that sort of thing. Unfortunately it was a bit too expensive (and dangerous) for us.
We set out to explore the town which was really small and beautifully quaint. Very Alpine village-y. We wandered around a bit. There was no kitchen in the hostel so we knew we would have to eat out or make more sandwiches. We were starving and had previously been recommended the pizzaria--we went and it was reasonably priced with huge, huge pizzas and good local beers.
Then we went back to our hostel to relax and prepare for a good hike in the mountains the next day.
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