Day 34: It's pronounced Neuschwanstein

Today’s plan of up early didn’t quite eventuate, but at least it was still morning when we left the house.  Neuschwanstein Castle was on the agenda for today.  I figured it would be an easy day, just one castle, not too hard….
After a quick detour into Grainau for a fruitless search for Weisswurtz we had a gute fahrt through the Bavarian countryside, passing more ruined castles atop hill tops.

As we were getting closer, I saw this beautiful town with painted buildings across from a large, full and fast flowing river.  The city was Fussen, and it looked like no town I had seen so we headed over the bridge and then drove through the middle of the city down some quite narrow streets on which the pedestrians seemed oblivious to the car.  Hmmm, am I meant to be driving on this road???  We parked and ten wandered the streets a while on foot, and then stopped off in a café in the pedestrian mall for some breakfast.  They had weiswertz and breze, awesome.  I tried and I liked.   A lot.

I continued walking around some more, down to the river and past churches and through squares with a viola playing busker.  Fussen is renowned for its history of being a producer of fine stringed instruments, all the way back to the lute.

On leaving Fussen, and passing through gorgeous countryside, we finally arrived at the castle; it was getting hotter and hotter, and where they directed me to park looked a very long way from a castle that was far up on a hill top.  Too far to think of walking today, and where are you even meant to buy the tickets from?

Wandering in a pseudo-random  direction up the street brought us to a sweltering ticket office, and a queue that went on and on.  When I finally got the ticket, the next available English tour was in another two and a half hours.  Hmmm, these things are best attended to first thing in the morning.
We got the bus up, which dropped us off just near the Marien Brückebridge.  This is the post card / poster view of Neuschwanstein Castle.  What the guidebook doesn’t tell you though is that this is a metal bridge with a wooden paling floor, spanning a canyon where the raging river and water fall is some 90 metres below.  Yes 90 metres!!! But wait; that’s not the worst of it.  Every tourist visiting the castle wants to take a picture, a picture of their partner, or a selfie off that bridge, which means the bridge is teeming with people bumping and jostling and swaying and, oh god let me off.  I took a quick pic and then we made our way through the cooler forest down to the castle.

There was quite a while still to pass, even after looking at that magnificent fairytale castle from every possible angle from the outside, so I grabbed a cool raddler from the kiosk.

Right, time to go and we queue up, just like thousands before us, and in we went. This castle is amazing.  The best castle I have been in, ever.

It's just how I would imagine a castle to actually be.  A true fairytale castle built in the main as a magnificent homage to Ludwig’s friend Wagner, who sadly actually never visited the castle.  In fact Ludwig seems a pretty sad story himself, but more of that later.  This castle was stunningly beautiful outside and within, with the most detailed, beautiful paintings on all the walls depicting various scenes from Wagner’s operas and Norse legends, intricate carvings everywhere, an incredible mosaic of the earth’s animals consisting of over 2,000,000 tiles, ornately decorated ceilings, a little grotto that opened out onto a terraced garden with an amazing view, and a delightfully cool breeze throughout the entire castle. For reasons unknown, no pictures allowed, so here are some from Wikipedia.  Though there is available in the giftshop at the end a DVD or HD Bluray 85 minute feature length documentary of the castle.  Maybe that’s why no pictures…

As magnificent as this castle was, it would have been even more so if it had been finished; however construction ceased on the death of King Ludwig II, whose passing is clouded in mystery and the best of conspiracy theories.
Ludwig was certainly eccentric, with tales of him travelling at night through the forests in his incredibly ornate and splendid carriage, for those that were lucky enough to see it.  He was reasonably reclusive, loved grottos, worshipped King Louis XIV as well as Wagner, and was not in any way a lady’s man.  He was disliked immensely by his ministers who couldn’t control him and worried for his lavish spending, even though it was the royal money and not the states money.  Many believe it was those traitorous ministers who were responsible for him eventually turning up dead in a shallow lake along with his doctor.  A very sad tale for a remarkable, from what I’ve heard so far, creative and likely troubled man.
Here's a pic of some happy ladies dancing around the fountain in Garmisch, to cheer you up.

And if that didn't work, check this out.

And more pics from today over here.