Castles In The Air
Trip Start
Sep 07, 2008
1
15
33
Trip End
Oct 10, 2008
Munich,
Bavaria,
Germany
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The castle itself is a bit difficult to find and very poorly sign-posted coming from Switzerland, however thanks to Tom we found it with no hassles. We actually spotted the castle above the trees before we had even seen the first tourist sign. It is a magnificent building complete with white turrets, towering above the trees which are just starting to show their autumn colours. Very much the fairytale.
King Ludwig II grew up in this part of the world in a castle called Hohenschwangau, which is a fairly unimpressive yellow castle on the way up the hill to Neuschwanstein
The Happy Honeymooners at Neuschwanstein
. It obviously wasn't to his liking either, as once he became King he started a massive building campaign to build castles all over Germany. The castle at Neuschwanstein was to pay tribute to his favourite composer, Wagner, and to swans, his favourite animal. Unfortunately he died in 1886 before it was finished, in somewhat suspicious circumstances and all work on his castles immediately stopped. Only a third of the interior of Neuschwanstein was finished, however it is worth a look to get an insight into just how mad King Ludwig actually was. We had to take a guided tour to get inside, which despite being packed in like sardines in every room, was still interesting. There is such random stuff in some rooms, like a faux cave, swans in nearly every room, including door handles shaped like swans and paintings depicting Wagner's operas on most of the walls. It was like nothing I have ever seen before in any of the stately homes we have visited. We likened it to Matt having enough money to build a castle to honour Metallica which would no doubt be almost as bizarre.Matt was so tolerant as this was much more my thing than his, and even humoured me when I suggested Princess Melanie didn't want to walk back down the hill to the car but would rather like to travel by horse drawn carriage. In the ultimate in tourist cheesiness we climbed aboard the horse and cart waiting outside the gates of the castle and started our journey back down the hill
The Courtuard at Neuschwanstein
. I loved it but I know Matt was just hoping he didn't see anyone he knew in the 15 minutes it took us to get there. Husbands are so lovely!!After a day of playing princess it was on to our next stop Munich and some much more manly pursuits like beer drinking and sausage eating. (Even as I type that Matt is killing himself laughing at how wrong that sounds, but really that's what people do in Germany!)
We arrived to find Munich positively buzzing with the crowds of Oktoberfest. Men in lederhosen and women in traditional beer wench outfits roamed the streets and everyone seemed to be headed for the huge field at the end of our street, Theresienwiese, where Oktoberfest is held. We eventually made it to our hotel and checked in and as it was already 7pm, headed straight out to have dinner at our favourite Munich restaurant, Haxnbauer. Every time we come to Munich we have to eat here as they are renowned for the pork knuckle that they roast for 12 hours over a bed of coals. I have no chance of eating one of these things, as it is the knee joint from a pig and you buy one by weight, and each one weighs 800-1000 grams. However Matt took one for the team and ordered one and even let me steal some of it. Husbands are so lovely!! My meal was equally as good with a veal goulash served with the traditional butter noodles called spatzel. I had tried spatzel for the first time, at Haxnbauer a few years ago and have been dying to have it again ever since. With our stomachs well-lined and our first half litre of beer under our belts we headed off to experience Oktoberfest for the first time.
Oktoberfest is one of those institutions that you have to experience for yourself just once in your life, particularly if you enjoy a beer or two like we do
Love and Marriage, go together like a ..
. However nothing we had heard about Oktoberfest in the past had prepared us for the grand scale of what greeted us as we entered Theresienwiese. There were rollercoasters, haunted houses, giant ferris wheels, scattered amongst these enormous beer tents as big as soccer fields. Each brand of beer has its own tent, some of which are exclusive as we found when we were denied entry to the first one we tried. We quickly found another and were amazed at what we saw. Germans all dressed in traditional Bavarian costumes, standing on chairs and tables, all holding 1 litre beer steins, singing at the top of their voices. You could not move and you certainly couldn't find a seat at any of the tables in order to get served a beer. We wandered and soaked up some of the atmosphere for a while, however being the only almost sober people in the place, with no beers in our hand, we soon decided to make our way outside to the very deserted Weissbeer tent we had seen earlier. Matt is a huge fan of wheat beer but I had never tried it and I soon found out why the wheat beer tent was deserted. Wheat beer is definitely an acquired taste and unfortunately we had arrived too late in the day to acquire it, as by 9.30pm everything was shutting down and the crowds were flowing towards the exits. We were a bit embarrassed to see the typical Aussie tourist stumbling along in his thongs picking a fight with a local boy in lederhosen. Determined to be better examples of Aussie tourists we vowed to get here early tomorrow to really experience the wonders of a day at Oktoberfest. 
