Fun with 'Mad' Ludwig II

I didn't think we'd get there, and didn't think we would manage it due to the weather conditions, but circumstances have conspired today to give us a helping hand. A long long time back, I told a friend at school that we'd like to go to Neuschwanstein castle in Bavaria. The major problem for us was timing, arriving in Germany in January in a mobile home is not the ideal way to get to see such places. The constraints of keeping warm and safe led us to not take on the snow south west of Munich to where we wanted to be. 

Today however, we have been blessed with a clear day, and again the kindness of Christian, who lent us his car. This allowed us an easy passage to get to Neuschwanstein (and despite snow falling,return too!). And was it worth it? Was it worth 'bigging' it up for the children? In short, yes it was. Again, a slightly out of season thing to do, but what a fantastic place. It is completely the archetypal fairy tale castle created by King Ludwig II. There was sadness in this slightly bonkers creativity though, he only lived for 172 days in the place after it was made habitable (not finished), and during this period was certified mentally ill, and was therefore dethroned. It was all of course only a ploy by the government to get rid of him as his gloriously fantastic buildings had quite an enormous cost implication for the country. As a result he died 2 weeks later in mysterious circumstances, along with the doctor who had him certified. Rather oddly, 6 weeks later, the castle opened as a museum after he died and therefore no other people had ever lived there. So quite an odd story, but the resultant building is quite amazing, with the most amazing Alpine backdrop. We got some sensible photos that give an idea of it. If in doubt, again a quick google search will reveal a million and one 'iconic' pictures. Here are some of ours!

A good day, with many thanks to Christian and his lovely Audi A6...... Damn these nice cars!