This was our day for over the top castles and churches. Fussen is just a few km from Schwangau, a small town standing to the east on a small lake called the Alpsee. Schwangau is really at the foot of the mountains and the Tirol. Just above the town are two castles. The first is Hohenschwangau, which dates from the 12th century. In recent history, it was restored by king Maximilian II, in 1832-36. The restoration involved famous artists of the Romantic epoch, and today it has 14 rooms of sumptuous German Romanesque style.
Maximilian had two sons, the eldest, Ludwig, became Ludwig II when his father died, in 1864. Ludwig had become infatuated with the story of Lohengrin, the heroic saga of the swan knight. Richard Wagner's opera of this was first performed in 1858, when Ludwig was 13, and he had gone to see a performance when he was 16. As soon as he became king, Ludwig summoned Wagner and begn to support him financially. When Bavaria lost in war to Prussia a few years later, Ludwig lost much of his real power. He seemed to withdraw into a fantasy world based on past medieval glories. Central to this were the works of Wagner, specifically his adaptations of the tales of Tristan and Isolde, Tannhauser, Sigurd and Gudrun, Parcifal, and Lohengrin.
Ludwig had grown up at Hohenschwangau. Now he took over two ruined castles on a hill above, and commenced construction of a fairy tale castle there. This was Neuschwanstein. Literally it was a fairy tale castle. The style of castles anyway is to have elaborate decoration, with oversized paintings and gilt edging on everything. But in this castle all walls are covered by 62 paintings, maybe more like frescoes. I am not sure how many are removable in frames. Basically, the impression is that most parts of most walls are paintings. The paintings tell the stories of the five sagas, it seemed to me mostly in serial fashion. So that is to say the man built himself a giant comic book of his favourite stories. Cool!
It is significant then, that the initial designs were done not by an architect but by a set designer. In fact a major room in the castle is a "Singer's Hall", and this has stage scenery by a Munich theatre painter.
Ludwig's expenditures on not only this, but other castles, began to threaten the stability of the family fortune, and even the state. Before the family could rein him in, the government acted and had him declared insane. They shipped him off to Berg Castle at Starnberg Lake, which had been converted to work as a prison. That was June 12, 1886. Two days later (give or take) he was dead - drowned, with his doctor as well, in the lake. It is a mystery. There seems to be no real proof around that he was really crazy, or that he was suicidal. It seems like someone had him done in.
Maybe all geniuses are crazy, or vice versa, but this one certainly left us something worth looking at. From our own point of view, that meant reading the Rick Steves book to get his advice on how best to reach the castles. We were helped by the fact that our guest house has passes that get you on the regional bus system for free. Also, Pia, our hostess gave us the ok to make sandwiches from the breakfast buffet! So we took the bus to Schwangau and then a shuttle bus up to Neuschwanstein. You can also go by horse drawn carriage. Our plan was to carriage down, but we ended up walking.
The Grampies took to the busses. After a month only on bike, it was amazing how fast a bus moves!
Rick Steves had warned of hoards of tourists, and recommended buying castle tickets online in advance. Indeed, there was evidence of the hoards in the fact that the castle has an entry system like that of Schonbrunn Castle in Vienna. There we had stood in a 1/2 km line just to buy a ticket to get in to another line. The way these systems work is that when you do somehow get your ticket, it specifies admission at a certain future time. A scanner on a turnstyle will not let you in until your time has come. And, if you are late, you also are not going through.
When we got to the ticket office, for some reason there was almost no one there. We threaded our way back and forth in the crowd control taped path unimpeded! However the shuttle bus to the castle did magically fill up - with 95 percent Chinese people. It was standing room only, but I think our bus mates were well adapted to this. I was impressed by the young woman just beside us - so serene - she was in a world of her own.
Using our advance info from Rick Steves, from the shuttle we headed not to the castle, but first to the Marien Brucke - Queen Mary's Bridge. This crossed a narrow gorge above the castle, and gives a magnificent view of both the castle and the valley below. It was a bit shocking when we stepped out onto the bridge, because it is narrow, and the gorge deep. We grabbed each other's hands and hung on. This was a good thing, because now a goodly portion of our Chinese friends from the bus piled onto the bridge too. The bridge deck boards were wiggly, the bridge swayed, and we also felt like we could be swept overboard by the human wave alone. Still, we clung in there, and I hope got some good shots.
It would take the Chinese guys some time to snap the requisite ten million shots of the scene and of themselves in the scene, so we escaped on our own and headed for the castle. The short walk, all alone, in the mountain forest was great.
When our time came to go into the castle, we also found we were part of only a small group. You get a live guide, and ours - speaking English with a pleasant German accent, was knowledgeable and interesting. One downer was a strict no photos policy - no idea why. But with our guide right there, there was no hope to record any of the wonders we saw, except for things in the castle kitchen. Again, no idea why they turned us loose there, unsupervised.
Really enthused by the castle itself and by the tour, we exited, of course, by way of the gift shop. We first told ourselves not to grab everything in sight, for the grandkids. Then we grabbed everything in sight. Later, as we walked back to Schwangau we encountered many more souvenir shops, and did our best to keep them in business as well!
In the room that was going to be developed as the "Knights Bath" a tile heater stove that was never used. Actually Ludwig did not like this one and installed other ones elsewhere in the castle.
We did run into Merv. We had been hoping to spot him after failing to make contact by phone. Merv will now head West while we continue South, so this was a goodbye too.
Lots of flies in the horse poo on the path - included for the amusement of the kids, but lso showing that the high tech road cleaner did not work so well.
Sandra had alerted us to the existence of the Wieskirche, a Rococco church about 25 km from Schwangau. So we used our bus pass and hopped on what turned out to be the same line number that had brought us from Fussen (number 73) for the 40 minute ride out there. We only had about 40 minutes before the last bus back home to Fussen, but that proved just enough to absorb what the church was about.
What is was about was two things. Firstly, in 1738 an image of a bloodied Jesus that had come to be kept in a private house, was reported to have shed tears. The Jesus became a pilgrimage destination, and was housed in a small chapel of the "Scourged Saviour". Pilgrimage traffic became so large that a church was built to house the figure. "Wies" means "meadow" and since the chapel had been in a meadow, and anyway the new church was right beside in the same meadow, the church was the Wies Church.
Part two of the story is the style of the church. It is over the top Rococco. That means swarms of cherubs, gold trim, and painted ceilings. There is a lot of red - symbolizing Christ's blood, and blue, symbolizing God's love. There are gates to eternity, scenes of healing, Samaritans, tax collectors, etc. etc. It's a beautiful comic book - sharing something in that respect with Neuschwanstein. The priest and curator of the Wies writes in the guidebook that "Through its duality of art and theology this church holds a great spiritual strength...". I also liked it because they allowed photos!
We stopped at the post office on our way home to find boxes for mailing our loot (sure could not carry it far by bike!). This time the sweet older postal worker behind the counter was extremely helpful. The boxes we got turned out to be a little big, so we went out to see if we could find some more junk to put in. Fortunately for our wallet, most stores were closed! We did stop in one that had cuckoo clocks. Yes, yes, we have agreed no serious cuckoo clock looking until the Black Forest. Up by the castle they had cuckoo clocks too. All had some sort of Black forest label and "Made in Germany" on the face, but I am still wondering about false copies. In this store in Fussen they had one quite fancy one, with one week movement and turning water wheel, "only" 349 euros. I thought I had cuckoo clocks figured, and 349 was too cheap for these features. Was this a clone? No, said the clerk, it was a variant I was not aware of - moving parts but no music. Now I am confused again about features, authenticity, and price. Ok, I still have a month or more to figure it out.
Dodie and the nice man at the post office, as we prepare packages of souvenirs to send home and not be dragging on the bikes.
