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January 29, 2004
Germany, Part Three
Thursday
We signed up for a tour of the castle Neuschwanstein built in 1886 by King Ludwig II who was very artsy-fartsy and had a thing for building castles. So much so that he ran his family fortune out and started working on the Bavarian Government's money. You may recognize the castle Neuschwantstien as Cinderella's castle at Disney. Unfortunately the King was unable to complete construction of it and only got to live in it for less than six months. (I am giving you the Deb Codding special low down - I highly recommend you read up on this, it is a fascinating murder mystery) The Bavarian government decided he was crazy and unable to rule because once he realized that he did not actually have any real power to "rule", he refused to come to meetings and they had to send messengers to extremely remote locations to get him to sign any official papers, so they plucked him out of this castle and imprisoned him in another of his homes. The very next day, the king and his psychiatrist were found drowned in a lake. They have no idea what happened.
We had the good fortune of taking a bus through Austria and back into Germany in order to get there. The scenery is surreal. I feel like all I have done in describing Germany is gush about how beautiful it is. It looks like something out of a storybook, I have never seen anything like it. We are anxious to go back, possibly this summer to see what it is like without snow. I understand the hiking is outstanding.
The bus stopped at the bottom of the cliff that the castle is situated on and we took a horse and carriage the rest of the way.
It was extremely cold - about 20 degrees! We were not allowed to take any pictures inside the castle and I have not had any luck finding anything on the web either. Because they have so many people come through on tours, they have limited the tour to about six rooms of the castle. All of the walls are covered in frescoes and many are gilted with gold. The artistry is amazing. His bedroom has a hand carved canopy bed that took SIX years and four master carvers to do.
This is a picture from the highest floor we toured.
When we were done with the tour, we had lunch in the town. The tour guide had raved about the fresh trout they serve, that it was straight out of the river that day. Jake and I are passionate fish lovers, so we knew this was what we were going to have. We had no idea that we needed to be introduced to our lunch before we ate it hahahahahaha.
They did indeed serve it straight from the river - AS IS hahahahahahahaaha.
When we got back, we had planned to go ice skating again but I had the worst sinus headache and ended up staying in for the night. The next day, we walked around the town some more and then began the travel back. One thing I forgot to mention is that a good percentage of the Germans we met spoke at least fair English because it has been mandatory in their schools since after WWII. It was nice to be understood at least a little bit!
As with all vacations we were very happy to get back to our own space. Next up is a trip to Cairo, Egypt. There is a slight possibility that I will change that to Holland in April (for the tulips) because there is already an organized trip from Sicily to there. I have learned the hard way over, many times that you get to see so much more on an organized trip rather than the hit and miss way that I do things. The other thing that I have learned is that I want to go back to every single place we have already been - ARGH!
Posted by DebC at January 29, 2004 10:35 PM
Comments
OK, What I want to know is did he eat it?
Posted by: Mom at January 30, 2004 5:09 AM
Ok so when you go to Cairo let me know so i can maybe go with. you know that is one of the places i have always wanted to go. but i cant wait till i get there and see yall agian. love ya
Posted by: cheryl at January 31, 2004 6:13 AM
What a trip..!! Was the Trout cooked?
Wonderful stories. be sure to keep the file! love, Gramma
Posted by: Belva Codding at February 1, 2004 2:49 PM
HAHAHAHAHAHA, yes, it was steamed and so very, very tasty. And yes, Jake ate it too.
Posted by: DebC at February 1, 2004 10:36 PM
Oh and Cheryl, that sounds like a plan. Save up some extra money - we will go somewhere!
Posted by: DebC at February 1, 2004 10:37 PM