We took a two-hour train ride to the little town of Fuessen, located just on the German side of the border between Germany and Austria. We enjoyed lunch in a medieval-styled restaurant, surrounded by suits of armor and scary-looking weapons. It was all in good fun, of course. After lunch we had some ice cream and caught a taxi to our next destination, the nearby village of Hohenschwangau.
In Hohenschwangau, we were able to tour the most famous castle of the tragic Mad King Ludwig. Ludwig really was crazy. Instead of ruling his kingdom, he spent inordinate amounts of time and money building palaces for himself. He had a fascination with the works of Richard Wagner, and built the castle, Neuschwanstein, in the mountains of Hohenschwangau mostly as a stage for Wagnerian operas. The walls are decorated with painted scenes from Parsifal and other works of Wagner. The palace is beautiful, but clearly excessive. Poor Ludwig was deposed for his fiscal irresponsibility, and died a mysterious death by drowning in Lake Starnberg just outside of Munich. A sad ending to a fairy-tale story.
In spite of Ludwig’s misfortune, we had a fine day visiting his castle. By the way, if you have ever been to Disneyland, you might notice something…….
Jossy thought the castle looked a lot like the castle in Frozen so when you said that we may recognize something from Disneyland, we knew exactly what you were talking about. Did you like all that snow?
We are having hot weather here so it’s fun to see the snow. We miss you!