Hallertau Fields and Disney Land (Day 5 of Germany)

May 28th, 2009. Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday dear.... blah blah blah.

Yes... more spelling errors on this one too. Again, I will fix them. :)

Up and at 'em at 6am again. I'll bet there's no surprise there. I think I'm even cold this morning. It's a cloudy day outside and about 12 or 13°C. Yes, it's my birthday today. I turn 33. Wow. 33 years old. I remember 13 like it was yesterday...or 20 years ago. One of the two. The Goldner Löwe, as small of a town as it's in, actually had the forward thinking enough to mount the handheld shower head to the wall. BRILLIANT! THat way, us Americans could shower like we're accustomed to and the Europeans could sit in the tub and shower the way they're used to. I opted for the standing position as it is much easier to use both hands on the actual business side of the act of showering.

We took our luggage out to the Punto, paid for the incidentals from the hotel room (beer, water, another beer...), and went to the restaurant to eat breakfast. In many of the hotels, breakfast is included in the rate of the room. At the Leonardo Di Vinci and the Alfa, it was separate but at the Goldner Löwe, it was included. In Germany, that is called a Hotel Garne. Usual deli meats and cheeses with soft boiled eggs but this one actually had some sort of an egg scramble. We liked that one too.

Finished breakfast and headed back to the Autobahn to start the 500km trek to the Austrian border and a little cluster of towns called Füssen, Schwangau, and Hohenschwangau. Schwan in German is translated to Swan. There were knights in the little town of Schwangau back in the early part of millenium. They were the order of the Swan. More about that when we get there, though.

The Autobahn trip today was fairly uneventful. We did encounter a few spots of drizzle while were driving but otherwise, it was smooth sailing. We always seemed to stay fairly quiet in the car while we were driving and today was no exception. It was always just nice to be together in the car and driving through a European country. Sure, we ahd the radio going most of the time and even though the commercials and news breaks were in German, the majority of the music was American. The songs were never anything I would listen to personally but she seemed to know most of them so I guess I was happy as long as she was. A couple hundred km into the trip, we entered Bavaria. As some of you may know, the current states of Germany were at one time all separate countries with the northern most portion of the country being part of Prussia. It wasn't until Hitler that they all became unified under one nation. So, today, Bavaria is a state inside of Germany instead of its own country (although they do still recognize the royal lineage of the former nation).

Once we're into Bavaria for a little ways, I saw one of the brown and white signs that got me pretty excited. It read "Hopfenland Hallertau." SWEET! Hallertau hops are the hops I use predominantly in my beers (especially the German ones, even though there are 6 noble hops). Of course, we took the exit so I could see some of the hops fields a little more closely. I took a left because it looked more promising, as there was a little town just off the Autobahn on the lefthand side. The hops were everywhere! Hops grow on vines that are technically called "bines" instead of "vines." A healthy environment allows hops to grow upward for several feet (maybe up to 20 feet). Usually, the farmers will run what looks like a bunch of clothes lines in a field and have hundreds of strands of twine gowing from the horizontal lines down to the ground. May was still fairly early in the season so the hops were still growing and the cones themselves were not ready for harvest. It was so neat to drive through the little town that was full of hops and their caretakers. We turned around in one of the fields' private drives so I got out really quickly to get a picture taken with hops in the background. Happy Birthday!

Ok, on with the day's journey.

Getting back to the Autobahn was a real pain in the ass! We passed the Autobahn and went to a gas station to fill up again and use the restroom. Coming out of the restroom, there were signs indicating that we couldn't turn left. Ok... I'll turn right and then turn around somewhere (the Autobahn was on the left). Wow...went about 15km before I found a place where I could legally make a u-turn. After my run-in with the Berlin Polizei, I didn't want to test my luck in rural Bavaria. So, of course that meant the Autobahn was 15km back the other way. Sure, I got to see tons more hops but at this point, I just wanted to start heading southward!

I want to pause while I'm remembering to let everyone know that "Bavaria" is English. The state is actually called "Bayern" in German. We tend to do that a lot. Just like Munich (which is in Bavaria). That's actually called München. Not even close. So, for anyone who watches European Soccer, the team "Bayern München" is really the team in Munich, Bavaria. Oh! And remember when I told you all about how "er" means "from" somewhere? Not the case in Bayern. If you're from Bayern, you are Bayerische. You can see a little of our German roots there.

For the most part, the rest of the drive was fairly uneventful. There was a point in the day where the BlackBerry did its best to really screw me up. Man, oh man! I got so freaking lost where the Autobahn split off from one to the other (I forget now which one I was supposed to be on). The BlackBerry told me the road went one way but it did not go that way. I was heading toward Munich and I didn't want to do that. This one took me a little while to figure out and about 3 different Autobahns to get back where I needed to be. I was irritated as hell.

Ok...calmer now.

Got to our exit (Ausfahrt) to the 2 lane highway that would take us the rest of the way into Schwangau and to the Bavarian Alps. The sun was actually starting to peak through thte clouds so the scenery changed quite dramatically with this shift in lighting. It was a beautiful "country road" with wide open fields of tall grass and yellow flowers lining the sides of the roads. Way off in the distance, you could make out the shapes of the peaks of the Alps. They already looked magnificent and we still have 30 or 40 km left to go! As we get a lot closer, the mountains become bigger and more impressive. My wife is snapping photos left and right of all of the gorgeous scenery. We come around one curve and there we could finally make out the contrast of the Schloss Neuschwanstein. Wow... Simply breathtaking. There was this giant white castle nestled in the hills that even though so big, was dwarfed by the dark mountains in its background. I haven't seen my wife so excited about anything in my life, I don't think. I'll bet she used 50 shots just on this scene alone. It really was something. As we were getting even closer, you could see this very large lake below the mountains that had a very odd green/blue tint to the water. It's almost as if the mineral content of the water was so high that it actually changed the color of the water itself.

Ok... Now, we're coming into the town of Füssen and there are signs to head left for Hohenschwangau. I know our hotel is in that town and not the other two so I follow those signs. By now we can see the other castle in the same town as Neuschwanstein. This one is called Schloss Hohenschwangau and while not as magnificent as Neuschwanstein, it is still just as neat to look at (and much older, I might add). The streets of Hehnschwangau were absolutely packed with tourists, buses, horses with carriages. It was almost nerve wracking to drive in the town for fear of running someone over.And just as in American tourist towns, these people didn't even look to see if cars were coming before venturing out onto the streets. How irresponsible!

So, I'm looking for the address of our hotel. It's called Schloss Restaurant. I'm counting the street numbers and know I'm close but the buildings stop before we can get as high as the numbers for our address. Hmmm... Where the heck is our hotel? So, I drive down the other street in town (there are only 2) and that's not the right street. Wow...I'm so confused. So, I think to myself that maybe our hotel is not in Hohennschwangau but maybe in Schwangau about 4km away. I drive into Schwangau, stopping to let my wife take a few more pictures from the roadside. After not finding anything close to the streetname I'm loking for, she spots a sign for a tourist information center. We pulled into there, went inside, and asked the young lady where our hotel was. No... we didn't miss it. We didn't go far enough on the road we were on initially. But the buildings stopped. How could that be? Well, she explained that our aprticular hotel was UP the mountain and literally at the foot of the castle. Not down in town like all the other ones. What?!?! SWEET! So, we made our way back through Hohenschwangau and up the mountain to our hotel (bed and breakfast, really). It was a very attractive cottage looking building (though bigger) with just a few rooms on one floor. We checked in, took our luggage up to our room and then went back down the mountain so we could get tickets for the castle. This hotel was different than the others. Breakfast was included, of course, but this one had community restrooms and showers. I didn't mind that at all. I was in the Marines for goodness sakes. She, however, wasn't too keen on the community shower part.

Back in Hohenschwangau, we parked in a little pay lot in town and walked to the building that sold the tickets for both castles. It was getting later into the afternoon so we only had time for one of them today. Obviously, we chose Neuschwanstein. We will do Schloss Hohenschwangau tomorrow. We took a bus up to the top of the mountain and walked about 1km the rest of the way to the castle. Our tour didn't start for another 45 minutes so we had time to kill. At one of the bends in the path to the castle, there was a look out point. What an incredible view!!! You could look down onto the town and the other castle and into a large cove between some of the mountains. There was another lake at the end of town (it was a tiny town) that seriously looked like something you would see in a book or on a postcard. We took pictures from that view. Tons of them.

After a little more walking, we were now at the entrance of the castle. Man! It was so damned breathtaking up here (both from the beauty and altitude). My kids had just sent me a text on the BlackBerry and asked what we were doing. I responded that we were having dinner with the King. My daughter responded with "are you really having dinner with a King, Daddy?" It was cute. We waited at the gate until it was our group's turn to go into the castle. In the meantime, we took a bunch of pictures in the courtyard at the entrance. Took some of the towers, too. You see, this castle was the inspiration to the castle at Disney. You can really see the similarities between Neuschwantstein and the Disney castles.

During the tour, we were not allowed to take pictures IN the castle. We were allowed to take the through windows, if we wanted. The story behind the castle is pretty neat. King Ludwig reigned briefly in the 1800's and wanted a castle that was as authentic to a 13th century castle as he could get it. He had this one designed and built in that historic fashion. The biggest difference was that most of the windows had glass but the glass was inset as to not show glare from the sun (to further enhance the authentic look from outside). Only a couple of the floors were actually ever finished, though. You see, King Ludwig drowned in a lake in Munich after only a few years on the throne so construction screeched to a halt. In fact, he never even had his crown or throne made because these items were going to finished after the castle was built. His throne room, however was an emaculate display of art. Thousands of tiles depicting all of the kings in Germany as well as religious pictures. The castle also had running water but that was more primitive (although genius). The engineers of the day figured out how to channel water from the natural springs of the Alps and the pressure from the mountains actually made the water run. All of the water fixtures were swans and the water exited through the beaks of the swans. Very neat! The King's bedroom still had the blanket on the bed from when Ludwig was king. He slept on that bed and under the very blankets we were looking at. Wow. The whole castle was just an awe inspiring piece of history and architecture. The tour ended in the ballroom (which was finished) and then we were led throught the gift shop and let go. We bought a few things for ourselves and the kids and left the castle.

When we left the castle, we decided to walk back in the direction of where the bus stop was instead of down toward the town. At the bus stop, you had the option of going to the castle or going onto the bridge that was about 700 feet above a rocky stream. So, we wanted to visit the bridge, now. WOW! We both were nervous as hell and dizzy on this thing. Just some steel and some thing planks of wood that bounced when you walked too heavily. We went to the other side of the gorge, paused, got our bearings right and started back accross. We stopped for pictures halfway accross then got the hell out of there!

On the walk back down the mountain and into town, we decided to take the short cut through the woods instead of staying on the paved path. It may have been a little quicker but it was much prettier to look at than the pavement. Once we got into town, we decided to grab dinner. We went to a little restaurant in town and it really felt like we were the only ones there. I had what I will always remember as the best dinner of my life. It was called Jägerbraten. It was a piece of steak (the steaks are fairly thin there) smothered in a unique brown gravy with tons of mushrooms. It also came with Spätzle (little noodles). Together, that was the BOMB! Had a couple beers with dinner, paid, and decided we weren't ready for bed yet so we headed into the little town of Füssen for a bit.

Füssen was a very pretty and very traditional looking Bavarian town. It was about dusk by the time we got there so the pictures that I took were very cool, in my opinion. Street lights were on but there was still a soft blue glow in the sky in the background. People were still sitting at some of the cafes. We stopped at a more upscale gift shop where I bought myself a pewter (yeah, real classy) mug with a German fairy tale depicted around the perimeter of the mug. I;ve been meaning to drink a beer out of it but keep forgetting (not to drink beer...just to use the mug). We walked around sort of aimlessly for a bit and stopped for an espresso. After the espresso, we decided to head back to the hotel for the night.

On our way back to the hotel, we detoured down one of the country roads to try to get a good night picture of both of the castles. They were under lights at night so in the middle of the jet blackness that was Hohenschwangau, the castles were bright and easily seen. The problem with the pictures was that we had nothing to mount the camera on. As some of you may know, the lens opens to allow light in so it can capture the image. In the absence of light, the lens stays open longer. Well, it you're holding a camer with the lens open, you get really blurry pictures. We finally got a couple pictures of the castles that we considered decent so we headed back to the hotel.

Once in the hotel, we actually decided to watch a little TV for a bit. It was neat. Just the 2 of us in a bed and breakfast at the foot of a European Castle. Before long, we were both just too tired to stay awake so off with the lights and hello to a good night's sleep.