Kay and I weren’t strangers to Munich when we arrived for a three-day visit on July 7th of this year. We had been twice before, and it only testifies to the city’s greatness that there was so much more to see and do. I won’t pretend that our first full day was free of frustration, though. The large train station near where we stayed at the Hotel Metropole was surrounded by long ongoing and ever-changing construction that made it a confusing point of reference. We encountered more confusion relearning how to use the U-Bahn system. Finally, a gastrointestinal disorder made it impossible during the morning for me to be too far from a restroom.
Despite these irritants we managed a short visit to crowded Marienplatz with the Neues Rathaus and other icons.
It took much longer to take a mid-afternoon tram to find the Nymphenburg Palace and Park.
The enormous palace had been the summer residence of the Bavarian electors and kings. Ludwig II was born there. On that beautiful summer day, it was something to see! By the time we arrived, the weather had become very hot, and Kay elected to sit on a shaded bench near a stream while I went to the palace entrance and explored some of the formal beauties of the park.
I did so, taking photos of the building that stretches 2000 meters and is symmetrical with wings stretching a long way from the center.
There is water on both sides of the palace, and somehow, I got confused as to which side I had entered. I became concerned about having left Kay for too long and went to find her by going a long way in the wrong direction. I began to get tired and declaring I was lost, I addressed a couple of young men to ask if they could help me. One was a Munich native named David while his friend, Martin, was from the Netherlands. The upshot was that after I called Kay using the hotspot on David’s phone, they walked me back to the entrance where I had entered. We met Kay, who had come to meet me.
Bavarians love their beer. From where we sat in a restaurant, we watched a man finish off a small glass and then a large stein that held a liter. By the time we left, he was finishing his second liter
Our second day was a beauty. We took an all-day, Gray-Line tour south to pre-alpine Bavaria where we first visited Linderhof Palace then stopped at the village of Oberammergau and finally arrived at Hohenschwangau where we had lunch and then climbed to Schloss Neuschwanstein, the castle that is the stuff of fairy tales. All three were extraordinary destinations and made even more so by the comments of Monika, our extraordinary guide.
While we drove, she outlined the day’s plans and told us about the local culture. Villages have May Poles painted with the blue-and-white colors of the Bavarian flag. They stand tall for most of the year.
A simplified history lesson began with the 19th-century German Empire, which ended after World War I when Germany became a Republic with the loss of power for the various kings and princes who had ruled until then. Ludwig II was born on the 25th of August,1845. When his father died, he became King of Bavaria at age 18.
As an intellectual interested in music, art, and medieval history, he was uncomfortable in the kingly role he was meant to play. He created a parallel reality extolling the myths and culture of medieval Germany and built castles in southern Bavaria to enshrine that reality. It’s no surprise that Ludwig fell in love with the operas of Richard Wagner and that he became Wagner’s friend and patron.
Linderhof (meaning the farm of Linder family) is a palace built and decorated in the Baroque and Rococo styles. Our group toured its interior and marveled at the elaborate decor mixed with homages to Louis XlV of France, who was Ludwig’s idol, with the God-given right to rule and the absolute power that had become impossible for rulers in the 19th century.
Of special note is the room of mirrors that recalled the much larger one at Versailles and the bedroom, the largest in the palace, which recalled the Sun King’s where nobles attended his lever and coucher.
Outside, the gardens and fountains are formal in the style of the 18th century. Small bushes around a pool are shaped by topiary. The look of everything about the exterior setting was wonderful to see.
From Linderhof, we drove forty-five minutes to the village of Oberammergau (above the Ammer River). It is world famous for its passion play performed by locals every ten years. The large theater with an open stage that occupies the village center is dedicated to this event.
All around, the building facades are painted with biblical scenes, most depicting the Holy Family.
During our drives, we had time to relish the pre-alpine landscapes with their green meadows backed by mountain ranges. We passed signs for towns like Garmisch that I remembered from my youth as famous ski resorts.
It seemed that every village had a Catholic church with an onion dome on its tower. Monika said these had been pilgrimage churches.
Hohenschwangau is the site of a yellow castle on a hill above the village that belonged to Ludwig’s parents. It is designed like one from the dark ages with crenelated towers and roof line. However, the walls, unlike those of a defensive castle, are filled with windows. Our tour didn’t take us there. Instead, Kay and I ate a delicious lunch of pike perch at the Hotel Müller. It came with small, boiled potatoes, a vegetable mix, and a white-wine sauce.
We drank sparkling water and steins of the local beer.
After that, we had the task of getting up the mountainside to visit Schloss Neuschwansrtein (new swan rock) that Walt Disney had seen in the 1930s and made the model for Disneyland’s Cinderella castle. Of the three ways to get up to Schloss Neuschwansrtein, we stood in line for the shuttle bus.
It took us up a curved road to a point from where we walked to Mary’s Bridge that gives the most striking view of the castle.
It was while waiting to get on the bridge that we realized how many people had come to see the sight.
From the bridge we had to walk up hill another fifteen minutes to reach the entrance to the castle’s courtyard where we met Monika at exactly 3 o’clock. Our entrance was timed for 3:05 and we could not miss it because the tours of the interior were fully booked. Because there were many steps to climb inside, Kay chose to skip the tour and started back down the mountain with Monika’s help. She reached a spot where she boarded a carriage pulled by a pair of enormous draft horses that took her down to the village.
Schloss Neuschwansrtein was never finished. Of its two-hundred rooms, we saw perhaps twelve. Their Gothic architecture and decor were wonderfully executed to the highest standards of woodcarving. Murals depict characters from Wagner’s operas. They were beautifully painted and have been preserved by the Bavarian State. A lot of steps left me momentarily breathless, as I reached the top of each climb.
The throne room was the largest. A wall depicted autocratic European rulers of the past. Jesus Christ is depicted, as well, and beneath him, the twelve apostles. Ludwig was a devout Catholic.
We exited the castle by the large kitchen on the first floor. It had electricity and the first telephone in Bavaria. Ludwig used it to speak to his servants who were his only companions. He would dine alone and work at night reading and signing documents. There is a ballroom that was never used, and where no concerts were given. His eccentric behavior was part of the reason he was dubbed the “mad king.”
Ludwig was 40 when he died. We learned of his sad end during the drive back to the city. He had spent vast sums of money, much of it his own. Bankrupt, he petitioned his ministers for credit to continue spending on his castles. Instead, they made him a virtual prisoner at a property on Lake Starnberg not far from Munich. He was put under the supervision of a doctor who, without even examining him, declared that he was unfit to rule. One evening, Ludwig and the doctor went out walking and the following morning their bodies were discovered floating in the lake. No one knows what really happened. Ludwig was a strong swimmer, and it was unlikely that he had drowned. Were both men murdered or did Ludwig kill the doctor and commit suicide?
It had been a fascinating day and the opportunity of a lifetime to see and learn all we had.
Exhausted from our tour, our next-day visits to Alte Pinakothek and Pinakothek der Moderne museums were not as enjoyable as they might have been.
Too bad, because the Alte Pinakothek houses a world-famous collection of Old Masters. One gallery is filled with works by Rubens.
After a restorative lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant named Cyclo, we spent time in the Pinakothek der Moderne, a stunning building by architect Stephan Braunfels.
I’m sorry I was so tired because there were a lot of unusual paintings and photographs to look at, and I couldn’t give them the justice they deserved.
The following morning, we left Munich by train for Bressanone (aka Brixen), in the far northeast of Italy. There we spent two weeks attending our annual literary conference before heading back to Munich for more fun. Read Munich Part 2 for details.