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
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!
