Bavarian Castles

On Saturday, Judy and I got up early to have breakfast at 7 am so we could walk to our bus loading area for our trip to the castles. A little surprise was that Barbara and Jake's flight was delayed and so they were also having breakfast at 7 am- one more delicious breakfast together. We left the hotel and walked about 10 minutes to the block long bus stop for the tour busses to the Bavarian castles built by Ludwig II. We had signed up for the deluxe tour, but we were not sure what that included. We found that the bus had just 24 seats. There was one seat on each side of the bus with quite a bit of room between seats so about twice the room that a normal bus would have. We arrived 15 minutes early but everyone else was already on board, and the front two seats were available. We had a very large view through the front window of the road and countryside traveling through the Bavarian hills and valleys to the castles. The first castle that we visited was Linderhof. This was the smallest castle and was a private castle that Ludwig went to for weeks on end and lived in seclusion from his duties and responsibilities back in Munich. The rooms were small but were totally crammed full of decorations, carvings and plaster wall designs with lots of gold leaf on the walls and furniture. They don't allow pictures of the inside rooms- maybe the space is too small for people to back into a corner and take the perfect shot. So, I bought a tour book and took photos of their glossy pictures.

Bavarian town on the way to Linderhof Castle

Fountain at Linderhof Castel

Gardens surround Linderehof Castle

 

Front of Linderhof Castle

Gold room with mirrors that show endless hallway- from tour book pictures

Golden fountain looks like a geyser

Bedroom for a lonely king 

Music room with elaborate paintings and gilded frames

Ceiling sunlight with the Burbon family motto- "Nobody is greater". The French kings were the heroes of Ludwig II- but they all should have served their people and been more humble 

What good are riches with no one to share them with? Ludwig was a very lonely and isolated man with no wife or family of his own and few friends. I felt sad to think of such a wasted life of a king who did nothing for his people, but who spent all of his money on his own castle building and decorating schemes. In the Bible, the book of Ecclesiastes was written by king Solomon, who also had great riches and built many buildings, including the first temple in Jerusalem, and he wrote about the futility that he felt towards the end of his life. Although he had done everything that his heart imagined or desired and accomplished some great things in his building projects, he realized that a life without God, and without God‘s wisdom (guidance) for his decisions and activities was complete folly. He warned against anyone thinking that riches would bring happiness or satisfaction- they won't. The castles of Ludwig II in the beautiful mountains of Bavaria tell us the same story: life is empty without God's love, and without a family, and without friends to share and help and enjoy life together (sorrows and joys).  This is your most important choice in life: to believe in God and follow his ways or to go your own way in your own strength.  Psalm 1 says "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish."

The bus ride continued on the very narrow and winding roads going through the mountain of Bavaria and we stopped at the famous town of Oberommergau. This town is famous for the passion play that they produce for thousands and thousands of guests with an all-afternoon performance of the last week of Christ’s life before his crucifixion and resurrection in Jerusalem. They started the play after praying that God would spare their town from the bubonic plague in about 1630. Judy‘s parents had attended the passion play (perhaps in 1970 or 1980) and Judy’s dad told her and her siblings that they should go at least once to the passion play. Janet and Jeff were able to attend the delayed passion play of 2020, which was finally given in 2022 (after Covid). They went there with their friends just prior to our cruise last year in Scandinavia. Now at least Judy has seen the town and we walked around the theater which has a retractable roof so that when it’s not raining, the audience is sitting outside. We stopped briefly at a couple of wood carving shops, which the town is also famous for, and had time to purchase a few souvenirs before getting back on the bus and proceeding to the main castle of Neuschwanstein. 

Entering Oberommergau village

Bavarian Inn- the surrounding towns are all packed during years with the passion play

Painted front of Inn

Wood carving shop for Catholic art pieces

Inn surrounded with flower boxes

When we arrived at the Neuschwanstein Castle village, we had a couple of hours before our scheduled tour time, but we needed to find lunch and walk up the hill to the castle, which takes about 40 minutes going up. We decided to have lunch at a sandwich counter at one of the hotels rather than spend the extra time sitting at a café table and ordering food, and then we bought tickets and stood in line to ride the shuttle bus up to the Castle- the bus required much less walking in the hot afternoon sun. This castle was built on top of some old castle ruins that were near Ludwig's father's hunting castle. The castle was designed as a fairytale castle with the decorations inside displaying famous German legends and fairy story characters. The castle was constructed over a period of more than 10 years and Ludwig visited the castle and stayed there for only a few times during the construction. Only about 10 or 12 of the rooms were completed with decorations and furnishings before he died. The sadness of such an isolated and "out of reality" life was sad to see reflected in this castle that never had any parties or gatherings of other people. The dining room table was small with a setting for only one. His mind apparently was in the romantic past of German heroes and battles and victories, and he was completely out of touch with his responsibilities of leading a country. Judy and I enjoyed the wall decorations and paintings, which had an "old time" feel. The castle building has square towers and round towers, great tall walls and has a beautiful look, but it is completely artificial. 

This castle gives the same message as Jesus when he told his disciples to watch out for the Pharisees, who were the religious teachers of the Jewish people, but who emphasized the outside appearance of things, rather than changing their heart and mind on the inside to follow God's ways of love and service. Jesus told the Sadducees, as his disciples listened, that God sees the inside of a person's heart, and is not at all impressed with the outside appearances of clothes and riches and "good deeds" that were just a camouflage or a hiding of an evil and wicked heart. Jesus said to clean your inside so that your actions and words would match what was truly in your heart.  Don’t be a "fake castle" like Neuschwanstein was- let your good deeds be a response to God‘s love and care for you, and reflect what is truly in your heart. We walked down the hill to return to our bus, but there was very little time between when the tour was done and when we needed to board the bus to return to Munich. We felt like we were rushing, and somehow the rest of the tour group was already at the bus when we arrived, so once we were on board the bus left for the return to Munich. We rode through the beautiful farmlands and forested hills of Bavaria, and then got on the autobahn (freeway). There was an accident and all of the cars in the two lanes of the road moved to the sides of the road, leaving a middle corridor for the emergency vehicles. The bus driver told us that this practice was new to Germany and started just a couple of years ago. In America everyone tries to get over to the right, leaving the left-hand lane empty, but often it’s difficult for all of the cars to line up on the right side of the road. Maybe we should try the German idea? We were stopped for about an hour. After returning to our hotel from the bus stop, we took the advice of our tour guide who pointed out a pizza restaurant with outdoor patio across the boulevard from where the bus dropped us off. Our waiter was from California and had been living in Munich for a few years, so we had easy communication, and the pizza oven and kitchen were near our table. It was a very busy place- preparing and cooking the very large pizzas and then delivering them to the tables. 

On Sunday I had planned to go to one more of Ludwig II's palaces in the outskirts of Munich, called Nymphenburg. This palace has beautiful rooms and gardens and pools and fountains, just like many of the European palaces. However, after breakfast Judy suggested and I agreed, that we could use a day of rest from our month-long touring routine. So we stayed at our hotel and rested and relaxed, taking a walk outside to find lunch sandwiches and Starbucks frappuccinos at the railway station. For dinner, we went to a restaurant called the block house, which was just across the street from the hotel, and had a good dinner together. 

Neuschwanstein- the Fairytale Castle (inspired Disneyland castle)

Elaborate balconies on end of castle

Entrance gate with an afternoon halo

Inside plaza of Neuschwanstein castle

Photograph of castle in winter wonderland

Decorated with tapestries, paintings, wood inlaid furniture and brass candelabra

Bedroom with carvings that took 14 woodcarvers four years to complete

Ballroom with stage for orchestra and vaulted ceiling that never had a ball or concert

Kitchen was very modern for 1880s but only used for King Ludwig II and a few staff

Judy is still smiling in the warm afternoon of our last day of touring

Judy is walking downhill slightly slower than these horses pulling the wagon

Traffic moved to both sides of the freeway because of a crash ahead

On Monday morning after breakfast, we checked out and took our suitcases to the airport shuttle bus, which was just a block from our hotel. We checked our bags at the Lufthansa airlines and boarded our airplane at about 4 o’clock, which was an hour after the flight was scheduled to leave. We learned that the reason for our delay was a shortage of cleaning crews, and a shortage of luggage loading crews and the airplane left two hours after the scheduled departure. We had economy plus tickets, that includes larger seats, more legroom and meal service, and so the flight to Chicago was very nice. When we arrived in Chicago, we had to pick up our bags and take them through passport control, although no one was checking the contents of anyone’s luggage at this time. When we tried to recheck our baggage onto the United airlines flight to Sacramento, they told us that we were too late to catch that flight and so we would spend the night in a hotel at the airport. A shuttle bus took us to the Hyatt Regency near the airport, which was a very impressive hotel with a huge open atrium with all the rooms around the atrium. We were on the fifth floor and had a very large room with two king-size beds. We had a voucher for their buffet breakfast the next morning and after breakfast we took the shuttle back to the airport and got on our 10 o’clock United flight to Sacramento, which arrived at about noon Sacramento time. We decided that breaking up the all-night international flight to California with a stopover at a hotel was a very nice travel option.  Although the overnight stopover is not included in any airline ticket I know about, we might consider adding this to our next itinerary!

Adventures in Munich

We had more train adventures leaving Salzburg and going to Munich. I bought our four tickets at a ticket machine, but only three tickets were printed; we went to the ticket office, but they could not print the fourth until later in the day when the transaction from the ticket machine showed up in their database. We went back to the ticket office the next morning when we were leaving for Munich but found out that we were too late to reserve seats- so we were again looking for four unreserved seats on a train. The first-class cars had compartments, and three of us were in a compartment with a German man who ended up being very helpful in arranging all our luggage in the compartment; we were packed tightly. Jake ended up in the compartment next to ours. We were delayed between Salzburg and Munich because the freight train accident that had disrupted trains in Vienna on Monday was still being repaired and trains had to take turns going both ways on one track. The German man also helped us unload when we finally made it to Munich. We left the station through the north exit after looking at Barbara’s phone for directions to our hotel and we crossed the street and as we turned left, we realized we were at the hotel, so that was easy. We checked in at about 1 o’clock and thankfully they had our rooms ready, and we spent an hour resting and then met up and headed east towards the main square (plaza) of Munich in the old town. The Townhall has a clock tower with figures that move as the bells in the tower are chiming for about five minutes. From our guidebook, we determined that the clocktower figures come out and do their little show from about four stories high at 11 am, at 12 noon, and at 5 pm so we determined to return to the plaza by 5 pm. Meanwhile we needed lunch and we stopped at a sandwich shop that had all the sandwiches displayed in a glass case, and also had pastries displayed in the case, so we decided on what we would like- a sandwich and a pastry- and then sat at a table on the side of the restaurant, under umbrella shades, and ordered and enjoyed a nice lunch, watching all the people walk down the main pedestrian street towards the old town square. 

One of the things that Barbara and Jake had seen on their trip to Munich a few years ago was the residence of the prince-bishop with his collection of rooms, decorations, art, and furniture spread through about 100 rooms. We walked there from the main square and were ready to buy tickets to go and see it, but the ticket person told us there wasn’t enough time, and that we should come back the next day when we could see it all. We took his advice and walked through the gardens that adjoin the residence and made our way to a subway station to return to the City Hall and watch the clock tower figures at 5 pm. 

The old town hall with gothic decorations and a clock tower in the middle

The "new" town hall with another clock tower on the main old town square

The clock tower figurines moving as the bells played at 5 pm

An important task each day when you’re traveling on your own like we were in Munich is to find a good dinner spot. This first night we asked the hotel clerk, and he sent us into the neighborhood, perhaps six blocks away, to a very nice Italian restaurant, where we enjoyed very good food and relaxed, and congratulated ourselves for making it on our whole cruise trip together to our last city. We always choose hotels that have a nice breakfast bar and so our breakfasts for our two mornings in Munich were very good, just like our breakfasts in Budapest and in Salzburg and at the beginning of our trip in Amsterdam. We always started our days with our favorite breakfast foods. 

Barbara and Judy waiting for our Italian dinner- we were late diners (9 pm) for Munich

Russ and Jake happily waiting for our lasagna to arrive- they still had some for us!

Friday morning was the last day for Barbara and Jake in Munich; they were flying home the next morning. Barbara and Judy were approaching their limits for traveling and visiting buildings, museums and castles. Jake and I wanted to visit the Bavarian history museum and asked the girls to come along with us for a morning activity. After breakfast, we all went to the museum on a trolley line that took us on a big loop in the southern, part of the city, and were surprised at the number of items in the museum; not just history materials, but also a full collection of some of the folklore furniture from the Bavarian area. Lots of paintings and church art, because Munich is very full of churches, and the region is full of famous artists who worked in decorating churches. The museum also had porcelain and silver and gold plates and a favorite room for me was the old musical instruments that they had collected. Each of us found parts of the museum that we enjoyed a lot. 

Bavarian wooden and painted furniture 

Painted armoire for clothes

Ceramics from Bavaria

Figurines playing musical instruments 

Ceramic relief of the shepherds and animals at the birth of Jesus

Ceramic statue of St. George and the dragon- not big and not scary 

World globe and star globe (showing constellations) from about 1500

Old Bavarian musical instruments

River flowing through Munich

We were then trying to go to a building from about 1900 that was one of the city baths, since we had such a fun time at the Budapest thermal bath. We thought we would have lunch at the café at the baths that was recommended in our tour book. The walk to the bathhouse was along the river that flows through Munich, and it was a very beautiful walk completely under large trees with grass areas on the hill along the river and several beach areas where people were swimming or sunbathing along the river. I’m sure it’s a favorite place for people in Munich- to have such a nice parkway along the river. Unfortunately, the bath building was being restored, and the café was closed, and we couldn’t look in the bath pool rooms without buying a ticket, so we were directed under the bridge to a neighborhood café that turned out to be very good; Jake and I both enjoyed their special which was lasagna. We rode the trolley back to the hotel and everyone took a rest or nap for a couple hours prior to trying to find a dinner spot. I thought we should try the most famous beer house and beer garden (patio) that was located down past the main square and so we determined what trolley would take us closest and walked to have dinner in this restaurant that holds more than 2,000 people when is full during Oktoberfest. But it was too noisy for us and so we walked along the street and found a nice restaurant with patio tables; ours was near the main inside restaurant and not far out in the sidewalk area where there was lots of smoking. This was our last meal together because Barber and Jake were leaving the next morning to fly home and Judy and I were getting up early the next morning to take our bus tour to two of the castles that Ludwig II had built.

There are about 100 large and elaborately decorated churches in Munich 

The 1900 bath house cafe was closed- Judy is asking for another cafe suggestion

One of the old city gates of Munich- across the river from the bath house

Salzburg Express

On Monday, we left Budapest for Salzburg on a late train that left at 11:40 am so that we would have a relaxed morning and enjoy the scenic train ride for five hours to Salzburg. The hotel arranged a van taxi that we could all fit in and we arrived at the train station about 11:00. When we went to look on the big board announcing what trains were on what tracks, there was no 11:40 train to Salzburg. We asked the train station staff and they said that two days ago the Austrian train company changed the train station to across the river, and so we were 30 minutes away from the train station with all our luggage and there was no way to make our train, because the train departure was 15 minutes earlier, since the train did not have to come across the city. The second taxi driver was very talkative but told Judy not to worry that there were no seatbelts in the back seat- he was a very safe driver. This just increased the stress Judy was feeling. We got to the second station about 12 o’clock and found that the next train to Salzburg would leave at about 1:30 so we had a two-hour delay. Judy and Barbara found a shopping mall across the street and located a very nice bathroom. It was air-conditioned and so they looked in some of the shops until about 1 o’clock when they came back to the train station and bought sandwiches and pastries for our lunch. When the train arrived we loaded our six suitcases and two rolling backpacks onto the train aisle and then looked for spots to put our luggage. There were overhead racks and some of the small suitcases could go up there, but our four large suitcases needed spots on luggage racks and there is just one on each end of each car. Because we missed our train with assigned seats, we had to look for open seats, but there weren’t very many open seats on this train. The seats we first sat in were reserved at the next city and we would be without seats. So I went through the dining car to the first-class cars and found several open seats in a first-class car, so we all moved down to the first-class car and purchased the upgrades which were about €25 each, except that the upgrade only applied to the Hungarian border which was coming up between where we were and Vienna. When another conductor came to check on our tickets, she had mercy on our predicament and didn’t charge us to upgrade to Vienna. 

The remaining trip to Vienna was calm and we might even have called it relaxing, but as we approached Vienna, there were all sorts of announcements in German that we did not understand. Once we stopped in Vienna, they announced that our train would terminate, and everyone had to get off the train to wait for a new train. A woman across from us told us that all of the train troubles were related to a freight train that derailed and caught fire between Salzburg and Munich the previous day. Trains could make it to Salzburg, but they could not continue to Munich, and so lots of trains were having to detour and our train at the last minute was canceled from Vienna to Salzburg. Our luggage was four cars behind the first-class car that we had moved to, and we had trouble getting down to the car with our luggage.  The train crew was leaving the cars and wouldn't let Judy back onto the car. Jake and I had gone one more car down and were able to quickly unload our eight suitcases and backpacks, but Judy was really upset that we were about to lose our luggage on the terminated train. A different train was brought in, and we loaded back up with our luggage and all the other passengers, and we found four open seats together and found places for our luggage on a rack in the same car. The new conductor came through looking for tickets and we told him our sad story and he also had mercy on us and didn't charge for our first call upgrade. This was not quite as bad as The Orient-Express with mysterious murder suspects, but it was not the quiet, relaxing train trip that I had imagined. 

We finally arrived at about 8 o’clock and checked into our hotel, which was just across the plaza from the train station and went out for dinner, but found that restaurants in Salzburg close at about nine and so we bought groceries and packaged sandwiches at the train station store and had our dinner in our hotel rooms; we all agree it was a disappointing travel day- but thankfully we ended up with food and nice rooms ready for fun in Salzburg the next morning. This “bad train” day reminded me that Jesus told us: “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭34. 

Jesus did not promise us that every day would be smooth, but he promised to be with us in all that happens each day that we live. Trust in him on good days and trust in him on “bad train” days.

 

Passenger trains are used a lot in Europe 

 

Munich train station from our 8th floor window

How old is this train that we saw in the second Budapest station?

Judy and Barbara in first class compartment from Salzburg to Munich

On Tuesday after our nice breakfast, we bought Salzburg cards that allow us on the trolleys and give admission to most of the museums and buildings. We went to old town and rode the funicular up to the castle that sits high above the town on the ridge. There were many steps even after riding up to the castle plateau and Jake and I at least had fun walking around the circular stairs and passageways and looking at the small windows that were used to shoot arrows and muskets and cannons at anyone who might’ve attacked the castle. Apparently, no one ever captured the castle and perhaps no one ever attacked the castle. It was warm and after seeing several of the buildings all connected at different angles with cobblestone streets, the girls rested while Jake and I went in the last building that had a Museum and completed our tour of the castle. Then we made a great decision to have our lunch at the café under a sun canopy that overlooks the town. We had good food and a wonderful view. After lunch, we rode the funicular down and went to the bishop’s buildings and the main cathedral of Salzburg. The church buildings are now a museum with furniture, paintings and statues, as well as church decorations. After resting in our rooms we went on the tram in the rain to dinner in a German restaurant decorated with wood carvings and old furniture.

 
 

Salzburg old town and castle on hill 

View of old town from our lunch terrace 

Painter restoring castle wall decorations  

Fancy ceramic stove with figurines 

 Lunch with Barbara and Jake on the castle terrace 

Beautiful room in bishop’s palace 

Colorful painting of woman 

Beautiful woman of the Salzburg palace 

Front of the cathedral- who knows what style?
Wall carving of Jesus teaching the disciples?- oops, this carving has Mary teaching the disciples (this was one of the major mistakes of the Catholic Church- to elevate Mary above Jesus)

On Wednesday we took a bus out to a “day palace” of one of the prince-bishops, called Hellbrum (clear water spring). He built gardens with lakes and canals and many fountains and statues. He was very interested in technology in about 1620 and he built several fountains and water jets that could be turned on and off. He would seat guests at a table that was on a platform surrounded by water, and then have a servant turn on the jets that squirted out of the seats, and from all around the fountain area that would drench the guests. He called it a trick fountain. His palace rooms were full of decorations and statues and windows overlooking his gardens, which were on three sides of the house. We rode the bus back to our hotel and took a rest, and then we took a tram back to the old town and walked through the beautiful Maribell Gardens. There were fountains and statues and beautiful flowerbeds along the river with the buildings of Salzburg and the castle in the background. We walked across town to the University to go to our classical music concert, that was part of the Salzburg music festival. Our concert was performed by students who had been together for three weeks and this was their recital concert. We left at intermission after an hour and a half of music. The student groups included strings, brass instruments and one had a clarinet soloist with strings, but my favorite was two men playing giant marimba- one normal size of maybe four feet long (high notes) and one twice as long (low notes). They each held two sticks in each hand and they played so fast that it sounded like musical raindrops. We walked through a courtyard and found an Italian restaurant still open at 9:00 where we enjoyed a delicious dinner including tiramisu for desert. Although we had some troubles getting here, our days in Salzburg were very interesting and enjoyable.

 

Hellbrum palace and fountains 

Table for guests with trick (hidden) water jets

Room with fountains in back of palace

Water jet lifts crown in cave room

Old dining room furniture in folklore house at Hellbrun

Stuffed Unicorn in the nature room- they must be real

Beautiful Maribell gardens in Salzburg 
Judy leading us to the next garden area