Europe Days 30-31: Bavaria

Thursday, July 25

Today is another transfer day.  Our destination is Fussen, Germany, deep in Bavaria near the Austrian border, where we will tour King Ludwig’s castles on Friday.  I previously had planned on driving via Munich, and stopping at Dachau, since I thought it was important for the kids to be exposed to a concentration camp. Because we had visited Terezin, however, I felt less urgency to go to Dachau.  The kids did not want to see another concentration camp – too much of a downer, they said – so we reviewed our options. We had a choice of routes:  nonstop (about 3.5 hours), via Munich (about 4 hours), or via Innsbruck (about 4.5 hours).  After weighing the pros and cons of each, Innsbruck carried the vote. The kids didn’t want to drive non-stop, and they didn’t see the point of going to Munich for just a couple of hours, so Innsbruck it was. 

Along the way, I got to drive on the German autobahn, since our route to Innsbruck took us through Germany.  Contrary to my prior assumption, many parts of the autobahn have speed limits.  Once we were out of Salzberg, however, the speed limits vanished, and Porsches, BMWs, Audis and Benzs started blowing by me.  I gradually wound our minivan with its 1.8 liter diesel up and eventually hit 160 kph, or around 100 mph.  The van was rock solid and might have been good for more, but our exit came up too soon.  I wish I could take my S4 out for a spin on the autobahn.

We rolled into Innsbruck just after noon.  We parked at the base of the Nordkette cable car and rode to the top of Hafelekar mountain, where we enjoyed sweeping views of the Innsbruck valley.  About 50 yards down the other side there was a large patch of snow, so Spencer, Garrett, and I had a snowball fight.  We thought about hiking up to some of the higher vistas, then decided we’d rather eat lunch.  We descended and drove over to our first choice (an Italian place recommended on TripAdvisor), but they were closed between 2:30 and 5.  My local internet connection had stopped working, and we had no idea where else to go.  Meanwhile, in the small park next to where we had parked, a bohemian-looking guy stood up from the group of 7 or 8 other guys who had been sitting on the grass surrounded by their stuff, wobbled over to the fountain, stripped off his clothes and plopped down in the water.  Ok then. 

We wandered around to the next open place we could find, and ended up at the Central Café (or something like that).  The menus were all in German, but the waiter was patient as he tried to translate.  Garrett and I ordered the special, which looked like a soup and meat and potatoes, Kirsten ordered some ravioli, and Jennifer and Spencer ordered burgers.  My and Garrett’s dish ended up being some very fatty beef floating in a broth with some carrots and spices, and a side of fried potatoes with sour cream and mustard.  I was hungry so I ate most of it (Garrett was less enthusiastic about it).  Kirsten’s ravioli was good, but there were only 6 of them.  And the burgers were very well done, resembling hockey pucks.  That’s what we get for blindly choosing a restaurant. 

We were still hungry after we left, so Kirsten spied a bakery and we had some Tirolian treats to top us off.  Coming back to the square where we parked, I found a parking ticket stuck under the windshield.  Apparently where we parked required a special permit, although the signs didn’t seem to indicate that.  Ok, time to get out of Austria. 

We headed west and then turned north, driving through a 4.4 km tunnel adjacent to the Zugspitze (the tallest mountain in Germany).  We passed through Ruette and pulled into Fussen at about 7 pm.  I had two rooms booked at one of Hotel Schwangeur Hof, and found that, while the beds were ok, there was no air conditioning, and (surprise) the windows had no screens.  Instead of baking in our rooms, we found a miniature golf course that ended up being much more difficult for everyone but Jennifer, who got 4 holes in one.  The mosquitoes started swarming us at dusk, so we hurried and finished, then went to the restaurant that we had selected for dinner, only to find that they stopped serving at 9 pm.  Really?  Once again, we were wandering around looking for something open.  Fortunately, this time we found an Italian place where the food was actually good.  Sated, we returned to our rooms and turned in.

Friday, July 26

Last night was not a good night for me.  I couldn’t get comfortable on the hotel pillow, and between leaking and tossing and turning, got only about 2 hours of sleep.  I did what I usually do: suck it up, drink Diet Coke to help me stay wake, and muddle through the day.

I had pre-booked tour tickets for Ludwig’s castles starting at 9:30 am, and received an email ordering us to be at the ticket center at 8:20 am or our tickets will be forfeited.  We snapped our arms, clicked our heels, and dutifully appeared as ordered, only to find a 30 minute line to actually obtain the tickets.  At least it was cool outside. 

Our first castle was HohenSchwangeau, built by Ludwig’s dad in the 1830’s, and where the mad king spent his summers as a youth.  It’s still furnished with the royal accoutrements, and the tour guide covered the family history.  Ludwig stayed there growing up, and after he became king at age 18, oversaw the construction of Neuschwanstein Castle.  Ludwig was an eccentric spendthrift with a serious man-crush on the composer Richard Wagner, to whom he dedicated Neuschwanstein.  In 1869, Ludwig was pressured by his uncle, Kaiser Wilhelm I, to join Bavaria with the emerging German state, although Ludwig still remained king and Bavaria retained a good deal of autonomy.  Ludwig withdrew from politics and public life, living in his fantasy world of medieval knights,  romanticism, and hoping Wagner would stay in a special bedroom Ludwig had built for him (the composer never did).  Ludwig focused on spending his family fortune on his building projects.  In 1886, Ludwig was declared insane on specious evidence, deposed, and died under mysterious circumstances (almost certainly murdered) the next day.  Six weeks later, the unfinished Neuschwanstein was opened to the public, where it remains one of the biggest tourist attractions in Germany.

After we finished our tour of HohenSchwangeau, we rode the bus up to Mary’s Bridge for the famous vista of Neuschwanstein.  Spencer and Kirsten amused themselves by stretching to retrieve a key balanced on one of the girders under the bridge, then tried it on several of the locks that plague bridges throughout Europe (unimaginative couples write their names on the lock, attach it to a bridge, then throw the key over the edge, symbolizing their eternal commitment).  They couldn’t find the matching lock, so Spencer tossed the key into the gorge.

We walked down to Neuschwanstein and shuffled through a tour with 50 noisy and sweaty boy scouts from Austria.  Only a few rooms of the castle were finished, and every one was centered around a Wagner opera.  It’s kind of creepy, actually.  Wagner apparently used Ludwig’s patronage to his benefit, but avoided the king’s sexual overtures. 

We rode a horse-drawn carriage back to the car, and decided we were done with Germany.  We drove the back roads towards the Bodensee (Lake Constance), a large and deep lake on the Rhine and on the border of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.  We stopped in Bregenz for lunch, finding a great kabob place.  The kids didn’t want to stop at the lake, so we pushed on, driving through Lichtenstein towards Lucerne and our last lodging place.  It turned out that the GPS directed us to the wrong place, and by that time I was fading fast.  Once again, our portable wifi was failing us, so we had to guess our way to the house. Eventually, we made it. 

To my surprise, our apartment is actually shared with the owners, and older couple who had three bedrooms and a guest bathroom.  The place was boiling hot and (of course) there was no air conditioning.  I was in a foul mood – tired, hot, and not wanting to put up with others.  Jennifer and the kids walked to a nearby place for a shockingly expensive dinner, and I retreated to the car, turned on the a/c, and closed my eyes.  Eventually the family returned, and I resigned myself to sleeping in the sauna.  I think I’m officially tired of this vacation.