Day 8 - A trip to the Bavarian Alps
Today Frederick and I were up and out of the house before 10:00 am this morning. It was a really nice sunny day, no wind and about 17 degrees, felt like spring at home, or some summers day.
We drove on the autobond hwy. I eally enjoyed being able to drive as fast as we wanted to. I think we were going about 140 to 150 km an hour. The country side was really beautiful. The farmers have planted their crops and the strawberry feilds are all up. They have had a very mild winter this year with almost no snow. The ski hills have suffered however from the lack of snow.
We drove to the Alps today. They are just absolutley breathtaking. We drove through quaint little villages, the names I cannot even say, and saw many great churches. We stopped at one, Frederick will tell you with the pictures which one.
We stopped at a castle and had lunch outside on the terrace. It was incredable. The Alps to our left and the grand hotel on our right. There were no bugs, nice and warm and sunny. It is going to be hard to come back to snow. We had some kind of white sausage and a freshly baked pretzel. It was really nice. After lunch we walked up to the castle and had a little confrountation with the tour guide.She said that the tour was full and that we would have to wait another 35 min. or so for the next one. When we bought the ticket we thought that we could just go in and look around on our own. So we did not want to wait that long so we went and Frederick had do do some forcefull talking in German to get our money back.
We drove arond the town of Oberammergau. This village is famous for the Passion Play. They have it every four years. Way back when they had a terrible plaque and prommised God that if he spared them they would hold the passin play every 4 years. To this day they are still doing it. I also belive that it is a good souce of income now for the village.
From there we drove up into the outskirts of the Alps mountains to see the Neuschwanstein Castle. The Cinderella Castle in Disney Land in Florida was modled after this castle, so it held more interest for me. The castle is set high up along the mountain side and the scenery around it is just , I cannot even find words to descibe how beautiful it is. We took a horse drawn carrage up to the castle, but we still had to walk a long way up the mountain to get to the castle. The foundation for the castle was started in 1869. They were still building it in 1886 when the King died at the age of 40. He was declared insane by a group of German doctors. They found him dead in a lake with his Dr. and to this day they do not know if it was murder or suicide. The castle was never finished inside. I do not think that he had very good taste as it was rather tacky inside, but was really great to see. I like the kitchen best.
Upon leaving the castle we walked , what seemed like another 4 miles up the mountain side to a bridge over a deep Pollat gorge. It has a 45 meter high water fall over the gorge at a hight of 91 meters. I had my picture taken with the bridge keeper. He said that no one had died on that bridge this year, but 3 had last year, but only at night when he is off duty.
From the castle that we were at you can see the castle that he grew up in THE ROYAL CASTLE OF HOHENSCHWANGAU. Frederick asked me if I would like to CLIMB up and see that one as well, I declined as we had been out in the fresh mountain air walking for quite a long time now.
It was a perfect day. I just had a great time. I was quite tired when we got home. Klause stayed at home as he had work to do, so he said, I think all that climbing and walking scared him of. When we arrived home I asked him how much he had paid Frederick to keep me out all day and bring me home very tired. He looked up at me from his computer and said, " Alot quite alot."
That is all my friends for today. Oh what a day it was.
Cheryl.