The two castles at the end of the Romantic Road have to be the most romantic sights yet. They are truly ‘Castles in the Air’. The first one, Schloss Hohenschwangau, was rebuilt (by Maximilian II) in the early 1800’s from 12th century ruins. It’s quite small as castles go, but quite lovely and has amazing furniture, tapestries, wall paintings, and large table ornaments. Table ornaments doesn’t really cover it, they were made of gold, solid silver and gemstones and were mostly wedding presents of enormous value. These were all original, the castle was turned into a museum 100 years ago, soon after it wasn’t lived in anymore, and this area wasn’t bombed. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take photos inside either castle so you’ll have to take our word! The castles are also in gorgeous settings with mountains and lakes as backdrops.
After Maximilian II died, his son, Ludwig II, decided he needed an even more romantic castle so built Schloss Neuschwanstein just a few kilometres away. In fact he built three castles during his reign - I’m not sure where the other two are. He was the last King of Bavaria, during his reign the German Reich was created, and he was given a generous allowance. So Ludwig took himself off to build castles and listen to operas. He was a bit short of funds towards the end though (I wonder why). He particularly loved Wagner, and was a great patron of his. The castle is absolutely gorgeous, apparently he had a stage designer rather than an architect design it. It has completely over the top chandeliers, including one in the throne room which is about 5-6 metres tall, and in the shape of a crown. It also has a Minstrel’s Hall in the centre for musical performances.
He was declared insane after some family and government ministers arranged a hasty psychiatric test – they were a bit worried about his spending apparently. Shortly after that he was found dead, at age 41, in shallow water in ‘mysterious circumstances’. No-one is sure if he was murdered or committed suicide, his doctor was also dead beside him. The uncompleted castle was turned into a museum within weeks of his death to help pay his debts. The order was cancelled on his throne so the throne-room lacks a throne; the Minstrel’s Hall was completed two weeks after his death, so he never got to hear a performance there; and he only spent about 6 weeks in the castle in total. Quite a sad little tale really...
Onto the Black Forest; we did intend stopping on the way at Lake Constance (which borders Switzerland and Austria as well as Germany) but so did everyone else in Germany! The summer school holidays have just started, and obviously this is a popular holiday destination. We stopped at three camps, which were all full, before we gave up and drove on to a camp further up country. We saw a zeppelin fly over while we were there, which neither of us has seen one flying before so that was something.
Today’s stop was at Triberg – apparently this is where cuckoo clocks originated. I always thought they were a Swiss thing, but Alfred told us in Switzerland that they’re more of a German thing so I guess they have it right. Anyway the town really has a thing for their cuckoo clocks. Some of them are really beautiful works of art, my favourite was this hand-carved one with a three dimensional Schloss Neuschwanstein – this should ring a bell to you, if you’ve been concentrating...
There were other wood carvings that were lovely too; this man carved from the piece of branch really took my eye, I like the grumpy man in the background too.
There is also quite a bit of kitch as you can see from the one we’re standing in front of – it was quite fun when it chimed at 1pm – everything started up: couples dancing, a man chopping, another one ringing the bell, characters walking across the balcony and even animals moving.
We also took a walk to Germany’s highest waterfall, which wasn’t terribly impressive, and bought a small bag of peanuts to feed the red squirrels – which are supposed to be numerous and friendly. We did have fun with the ‘Nut Cracker’ birds – they are very keen on the nuts.
We had almost given up on the squirrels but did get to see one right at the end – he was pretty shy though and took off with the nut I threw and didn’t come back, so I couldn’t get a decent photo - he's on the ground if you're having trouble spotting him in this one. Nice to finally see a red squirrel though, have seen quite a few greys. I still have plenty of nuts left – can have them with my salad tomorrow!
This really cheeky one wasn’t so hard to photograph though and even posed with Gus’ NZ hat.
Our very favourite thing about Triberg though, had to be that it is also the home of the Black Forest Cake. So being martyrs to the cause, we thought we’d better try a piece each, purely in the spirit of always sampling the local cuisine of course. Needless to say, it was delicious – it tasted like the cherry filling is soaked in sherry and plenty of chocolate and cream – yum!
We then drove up through the Black Forest - which looks much the same colour as any other forest, more green than black. We decided not to stop in Baden Baden but to go on a little further to find a campsite – big mistake – we got stuck in a traffic jam for a whole hour; that has to be a record for the whole trip.
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