The country of Germany is known for having a beautiful mountainous landscape and cloudy, wet climate in the summer months (CIA World Factbook). This weekends’ climate certainly did not go against the norm in Munich and Fussen, Germany. We left the sunny, warm Prague on Friday around 5:00 PM and did not get to Munich until around 11:00 PM and then had to leave again on Sunday morning at 7:20 AM. Since we knew that we were not going to have much time we decided to plan ahead and scheduled a trip to Fussen, Germany on Saturday in order to visit King Ludwig II’s castles, Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Without checking the weather or even looking at the window in the morning I decide to wear a tank top, crop pants, sandals, and luckily my rain jacket. On the way to the train station it was chilly, yet I thought to myself “nice job with the clothing decision, I think it was definitely cool enough to wear pants”. Little did I know that I was going to wish I would have worn warm boots, a winter coat and gloves. It literally rained from the time we stepped off the train in Fussen at 11:00 AM until the moment we got back to our hostel at 10:00 PM that night. There were five of us who went to see the castles and only one of us brought an umbrella and only two of us had packed rain jackets. Let’s just say not one of us was able to stay dry during our visit of King Ludwig II’s amazing castles located in the Bavarian Alps. King Ludwig grew up in the Hohenschwangau Castle, which was large but compared to the one that he had built; it seemed like just a baby. We went through this one first and as we were walking through I was seriously amazed at all of the amazing paintings and interior design planning that went into decorating the interior of the castle. The style of art and architecture were from the 19th century castle romanticism era. While King Ludwig lived there most of his life with his parents and brother, he is still known for his creation of Neuschwanstein, since it is the castle that Disney used to create the castle that every little girl dreams about, Cinderella’s castle.
We did not get to see all of the rooms, but we were shown the second floor which was King Ludwig’s mother’s floor. She had her own living room, dining room, dressing room, and bedroom. The bedroom had a door and staircase leading up to the king’s bedroom. Our guide told us that this was their “hanky panky” room. I could not get past how strange the concept of having separate living quarters from your spouse is. I definitely understand the need for personal space, but I feel like a separate eating, living, and sleeping area seemed a little extreme! The third floor was where the king’s quarter’s were and while they were larger than the queen’s they still did not seem that large when one is thinking about a castle. In the king’s quarters there was a telescope where King Ludwig would look out and watch the progress of his castle being built, since they are located within viewing distance from one another. It was neat to see that King Ludwig waited and was anticipating the day when his dream castle would be finished so that he could live there. Neuschwanstein took twenty-three years to build and King Ludwig was only able to live in his castle for 72 days until he died in 1886 of an unknown cause. Many of those years of construction were after his death. His castle that he had built was not only gigantic, but it also was very technologically advanced for its’ time during the mid 19th century. The castle had running water through a system where there was a line up in the mountains about the castle and the water would come down from this point and provide
water to the entire castle. It also had a telephone, which I found odd since our guide told us that there was only one other place that had a telephone, so that was the only number that they could call. In the castle there were 52 rooms, but only 17 of them were ever finished. It makes me sad to think that King Ludwig’s castle will never be finished. He waited many years for it to be built and only got to live in it for a three month period, which I felt was pretty depressing. The castle was built to be a refuge “sacred and out of reach” yet today it is ironically one of the largest tourist attractions in Bavaria. (http://www.german-way.com/neuschw.html).The tourism that this small populated city in Germany has received due to King Ludwig’s castles is astonishing. With over 6,000 guests a day in the summer coming to visit the castles it has really allowed for jobs and economic growth in Schwangau. Due to this, the people have really taken time and have put in 11.2 million euros into maintaining the castles.(http://goeurope.about.com/cs/germany/p/ludwig_castle.htm) While they have dished out quite a large sum, the economic awards have to be worth it, and the castles that were built were so beautiful that 1.3 million people come to visit it every year. Not even Walt Disney, the most famous fairytale writer could create a castle as beautiful as King Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein near Fussen, Germany. Although the day was miserably wet and cold, the visit to see these castles was definitely worth it and it is a tourist site that I would recommend everyone go see!
Here is a site that has some more information about the castle and ticket prices:http://www.letsgo-europe.com/Germany/Neuschwanstein/
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