4th Day in Munich, Germany

Linderhof Palace built by King Ludwig II.
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We had to get up really early in order to met the tour bus at 8:15am to go on the Royal Castle tour. This tour took us first to the Linderhof castle, which was built by King Ludwig II in French rococo style. The castle was started in 1874 and completed in 1878. Ludwig loved the arts and enjoyed the opera. He had a Venus temple from one of his favorite operas built on the hill directly in front of his castle and beautiful fountains and gardens leading up to it. The Linderhof was more of an extremely elaborate house than really a castle as we think of them today. It was decorated with statues and murals famous French kings from centuries before Ludwigs time. He was obsessed with the way they lived and wanted to transform himself into one and live like they did. After completion of the Linderhof, he started on the Herrenchiesee castle which was modelled after Versailles and erected on an island in the middle of Chiemsee. After visiting the Linderhof, we went to a small German village, Oberammergau to shop and look at hand made coo-coo clocks and other wooden crafts. The town is also known for its Passion of the Chirst plays, which people from around the world come to see. Next we went to see Ludwig's greatest masterpiece that was never finished, the Neuschwanstein Castle. This castle was built in the style of the Knight's Castle of the Middle Ages and was the inspiration for the Disney castle. This castle was built on a hill opposite the Hohenschwangau castle, which is where Ludwig spent most of his childhood. The Neuschwanstein castle was truly an amazing site. The weather was overcast and it was a little foggy, but it kind of gave it an eerie feeling of being in the Middle Ages. It has rained off and on all day, but I guess this was the normal German weather for this time of year, the previous two day had been very warm and sunny. We grabbed some lunch at the hotel resturant and the bottom of the hill before we took the trek up the hill to the castle. It was pretty steep and took about twenty minutes to climb to the top. There were horse drawn carriages and also a bus that went up a back road to the top, but we decided the walk would be good and maybe burn off some of the big lunch we had eaten. The tour of the castle was really cool and some of the rooms were totally amazing, like the throne-hall which had huge murals of Chirst and his apostles, tessellated floor of over two million stones to depict animals and plants from all over the world, and a massive brass chandelier that held 96 candles. Another impressive room was the bedroom, which was built oakwood carving that took fourteen sculptors four and half years to complete. After the tour we had to head back down the hill and had to get back on the bus to head back to Munich. We didn't get back to Munich until about 6:30pm, so we went back to the hotel to change for dinner. I had not worn my leiderhosen yet, so changed into it and we headed for a beer garden. The one we wanted to go to the Viktualienmarkt was already closed and looked like it was only open during the day or closed due to the weather. We ended up just going over to the Hofbrauhaus, which was an indoor beer hall. It was pretty busy, but we were able to find a table in the back that we available. We had some traditional Bavarian food and a few large beers. The Oompah band was playing and got to sport my new leiderhosen. It was alot of fun and we both agreed we wanted to come back and visit Munich again someday.

This tour took us first to the Linderhof castle, which was built by King Ludwig II in French rococo style.