One way to the UK?

Well,on the second day in Munich we headed out to Neuschwanstein Castle which was the home,for only a few months, of King Ludwig II, before he was declared crazy and taken away, and then found dead in a Lake along with his psychologist…. Neuschwanstein Castle is a 2 hour train ride, then short bus ride, then a hike (or another bus ride!) up a big hill to the actual Castle away from Munich! This is the castle that Walk Disney apparently based the Disney Castle on, so there you go! There is also a Swan Lake to the back of another Castle (King Ludwig’s father’s castle) and this was apparently the inspiration for the music and then ballet of Swan Lake.

The castle was pretty crazy – and never actually completed. It was about 4 stories high, but the third level was never finished however the ground floor, second and fourth floors were all really nice to look at and so well preserved. The woodwork was amazing around the place, and the walls were all painted in different colours and patters and the main theme throughout was the Swan! King Ludwig II loved his swans, and they appeared all over the place. He also had a great relationship with Richard Wagner and this also influenced many things we saw in the castle.

The whole day trip was great, and we didn’t get back to Munich until 7pm. The trip covered some great country side and scenery and we got to go right near to the Black Forrest and see the Alps all covered with snow! Yup, summer has well and truly left it seems!

The last day in Munich, seeng as we were freezing our tails off on the castle visit, we headed into the main street of Munich to see the ‘onion church’ where the devil left his footprint, and then shopped and shopped! Finally found a jacket each – mine a black one stuffed with duck down so it’ll be perfect in the freezing and snow (when I get there) and then we headed to have a look at the famour Hoffbrau House. The one made famous because back in the Nazi days, Hitler occupied the building as headquarters and when giving a speech he looked up (on the first floor) and saw the Jewish Symbol on the ceiling — he then turned this upside-down and it became the Nazi Symbol.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 12:56 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.