Herrenchiemsee Palace

Lake Chiemsee is the largest lake in Bavaria and is home to another one of King Ludwig II extravaganzas – Herrenchiemsee Palace. 

Not content with Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig set about building himself a palace.  True to form, the palace was to be grand and opulent.  It suffered, however, a similar fate to Neuschwanstein and despite the grand intentions neither the palace nor the interior rooms were completed. 

Only 20 of the 70 palace rooms have been decorated and our tour today showed the stark contrast between the bare-bricked unfinished rooms and the extravagant and elaborate detail of the completed ones.  There was so much opulence that it was hard to take it all in.  In one room, the King’s writing desk was made of 16 different types of inlaid wood, in another an unfinished cabinet that several carpenter’s had worked on for 4 years was made from turtle shell inlaid with wooden motifs.  

There were over 50 massive crystal chandeliers, the largest weighing half a tonne.  The dining table sat on an elevator that could be lowered to the floor below where it was laden with food and crockery before being raised again.  The King’s bath, more like a pool, held 60,000 litres of water and took over 8 hours to fill! 

Herrenchiemsee gardens

King Ludwig II was an ardent admirer of French King Louis XIV and Herrenchiemsee was to have been an equivalent to the Palace of Versailles.  It too has a stunning hall of mirrors and huge mirrors, often facing each other to create infinite reflections, feature throughout the completed room.

You're not allowed to photograph inside the palace, so nabbed this from the net.

Our tour guide was brilliant, animated and fun and she made a special effort to include the kids.  For a stopping point designed to break up our Munich – Mondsee journey Herrenchiemsee Palace was a treat.

Scenery en route

Munchen

Our day in Munich was sorted by the hotel’s complimentary map, which included a walk around the main sights of the city and to make it really easy it left from and returned to the hotel.  Done, sold!

We set off after breakfast at about 9:30am and didn’t get back to the hotel until nearly 4:30pm.  Here’s what we saw….

First stop – the Milka chocolate shop.  The kids were in heaven picking their own bar, although Jeremy agonised and I mean AGONISED over his choice.  He fluffed and farted around and then in the tenth hour changed his mind and ran back for a last minute switch.  On his way back to the cash register (we were in the process of buying at this stage) down he went – splat on the floor and splat went his freshly and finally selected block of chocolate.  Oh dear!

Anyway – we spent way to long in here, but the dividends paid off over then next 2 days.

Next up was the Viktualienmarkt markets.  Vendors can only sell natural and homemade products – fruit, vegetables, honey, cider, craft items etc.  The markets were colourful and had some lovely Christmas craft items that you are not (and I repeat NOT) allowed to photograph.  I got a good two-minute German telling off for taking one of the pictures below L.

Marienplatz is at the heart of Munich and is impressive…

And then Steve found his own brand of heaven in the Hofbrauhaus – one of the largest and most famous beer halls in the world, complete with band playing ooh pah pah music.  To make it a truly German experience we had a wurst with sauerkraut for lunch.

And then we saw something that you normally wouldn’t associate with Munich.  Surfing – yes surfing!  Not at the beach of course, but in a fast flowing and as the name “Eisbach” suggests, very cold river.  The narrow width of the river, the fast flowing water, submerged rocks and the side walls all make this a dangerous sport.  While it has been done since the early 1970’s Munich river surfing was only legalized in 2010, apparently greatly assisted by the publicity provided by the internet.  Read more here if you’re interested.

And then on to something far more sedate, the lovely garden, made all the more lovely by the cello player and his stirring rendition of Frank Sinatra’s my way.  I had no idea that song would sound so beautiful on the cello.

Then, for the second night in a row we had Turkish for dinner – doner kebaps X 5.  Mmm Mmmm.

Neuschwanstein

We are lucky, the forecast for today was rain but we woke up to blue skies and a gorgeous morning.  Good thing too as today was Neuschwanstein day!

Before we'd even seen the castle I was a bit taken with this Japanese maple beside the toilettens J

Our first view of the castle was taken from here.....

Marienbrucke

I am not good with heights and this wretched bridge had gaps between the planks and was a bit squeaky in parts!  I walked onto it alright, but about halfway along Daniel thought it would be funny to pretend to push me over. He regretted doing that!

Rewind 30 odd years and I remember doing exactly the same thing to Mum as she paused, scared stiff in the middle of a suspension bridge, somewhere in Asia I think it was.  Anyway - now that the shoe's on the other foot so to speak I've only got one sheepish thing to say - sorry Mum. J

But - the view of Neuschwanstein from here was worth any little jitters.....

It was hard to stop snapping...

Although I really wanted to get off the damn bridge...

This one was taken from the very edge of the bridge, that way if it collapsed I'd land on the small ledge below :)

The surrounding countryside (the reason King Ludwig II chose to build where he did) was stunning...

We took a tour of the inside of the castle.  Due to budget problems and King Ludwig's early death (in mysterious circumstances at age 40) neither the castle or its interior were completed. Shortly after the the King's death in 1886 the castle was opened to the public.  It is one of the major tourist attractions in Germany and in peak season can cater for upwards of 6,000 visitors a day!

Then it was back down the hill by horse drawn carriage...

We all loved Neuschwanstein and I'm sure it will go down as one of the many highlights of our trip.

And now for something completely different.  Spied these little fellas whizzing around a lake and managed to get some semi-decent pictures of them...

Fussen

Border crossings aren't particularly well defined in this modern day Europe and I think on our recent travels we have drifted in and out of Leichtenstein, Austria and Germany.

But - Germany is where we are now, in a lovely hotel in the lovely town of Fussen.  We arrived yesterday around noon, had a bit of a wander....

and then checked in to our hotel for some down time.


We're all a bit weary from travelling and a bit of relaxation was a welcome change from the constant activity.

Altstatten and Lake Constance

For something a bit different we headed out to a water park on the shores of Lake Constance about 30 kms away.  Unfortunately it is really hazy here at the moment and photos of the lake just came out looking dull and uninspiring.  So instead of lake pictures, here's some of the water park action.

Steve and fearless Daniel off the 10m...

Jeremy, Emily and Steve tackle the mid tower....

Coming down the slide....

Emily splashing about...

And here are some pictures of Altstatten, the town we're staying in...

Lucerne

Today was a travel day, but that didn't mean no photos!  We took a 40km detour on our trip from the lovely Wassen to Altstatten, to visit Lucerne.

I visited here a long, long time ago and remember the main part of town, although it was winter and was cold and misty.  I'm going to look up the photos I took when I get home.

Anyway here are some of the sights.....

The glasses-wearing family in the middle were advertising an optometry shop.

Engelberg

Cloudy, rain and a bit nippy - what's going on?  After hot, dry weather in Italy with blue skies and temperatures in the high 30's every day this is a bit of a shock to the system.  Still - being such intrepid travellers we were prepared for all sorts of weather NOT!

So - of we went on our Engelberg adventure wearing sandals, shorts and t-shirts, which was fine for most of the day, they just proved a teensy bit inadequate right at the end, but more about that later.

Firstly - we checked out this monastery, complete with small cheese making room.  And it was here that we had our genuine Swiss lunch experience - cheese fondue. Unfortunately it was not to everyone's taste and three of the comments were gross, disgusting and ble.  I think it may have been the wine in it.  As a result - Emily's lunch consisted of about 7 cubes of bread.

After fuelling up we hit the slopes, starting with a ride up the cable car....

The views were spectacular...

It was quiet at the top, actually it wasn't quite the top of the mountain and we decided to take a one hour walk that took in a higher peak and then looped back down.  All good and here's what we saw on the way...

More beautiful scenery with swings and seats placed in all the right spots to take in the best of the views.

All was good, we were having a ball and then it happened.  A massive clap of thunder, followed by another and then the heavens opened.  Not just rain, but hail!  We were drenched in seconds, the road turned into a mini-river and remember what I said about our clothes and footwear being inadequate - it was just about now that that became painfully obvious.

We spent a few miserable minutes sheltering under a sparse tree (that was also a bit inadequate) trying to decide whether it was better to shelter or just keep going - I mean we couldn't get any wetter.

We did press on, Jem lost his thongs and I slipped out of my slip-ons (renamed to slip-offs as of now) as we waded through what was now a stream.  After about 20 minutes we reached a cafe, burst in dripping and grabbed the attention of about 10 elderly Swiss hikers.  They just looked at us, saturated and dripping - there was no need for words!

Here's a picture of us impersonating drowned rats.

Unfortunately we had further to go and once sufficiently recovered on we went.  Here we are pressing on part 2.

Back in the car we had the heater going full blast and I drove my reg grundies (I know, I know - too much info - I only included it to emphasise how wet we were and the necessity to remove wet duds).

Back in the hotel, snuggled under excellent doonas we were able to have a weak laugh about it.

Interlaken

We experienced Swiss scenery at its best on today's trip from Wassen to Interlaken via the Sustenpass route.  Given the mountainous terrain, the road was reasonably wide and in excellent condition.  But that didn't mean that my hair wasn't standing on end and my toes tingling every time I took a quick peek over the edge.

Stop number 1, this is before the start of the pass, the bottom photo shows where we're heading, the top one where we've come from...

Stop number 2, mainly to get a picture of a cow with a bell.  She was very obliging and posed beautifully for her portrait.

Th next lot of pictures were taken over a few different stops and show some of the hair pins in the road.  Motor bikes were the way to go and were out in force.  There was also a surprising number of cyclists around.  I take my hat off to them all as no matter the direction there would have been a good 15km or so of solid uphill.

And after the splendour of the pass, we arrived at the splendour of Interlaken.

We took a ride across the lake on a paddle steamer to the little town of Iseltwald.

From here we took what was supposed to be a short stroll to a waterfall.  It ended up being a bit of a wild goose chase (all my fault) and we hiked for about 50 minutes up a hill going completely the wrong way.  Good exercise I say!  Anyway - it must have made the boys a bit hot  J