Opulence of Crazy King Ludwig II (June 15th)

Today I left the beautiful and stunning Reutte. I wish we did not have to leave, but I was also excited to move onto new places and explore new lands. Our final destination was Salzburg. But to get there we would take the scenic route to Linderhof Palace before hopping onto the autobahn to Salzburg.

Yesterday was filled with Crazy King Ludwig II's palatial castle Neuschwanstein. Today was the equally opulent Linderhof Palace. This was the palace where King Ludwig actually lived. See, he actually never lived in Neuschwanstein as he died before it was finished. Linderhof is situated in a very scenic area of Germany. We took the scenic route to Linderhof, which led us by mountains, lakes, and dense forests. It was beautiful. The palace itself is based on a square, where the rooms are situated around the central staircase. The outside was quite beautiful. The building itself was opulent and highly ornamented. The gardens and fountains on each side of the palace where even more stunning. I would not mind living in this palace. At times it would be opulent, but I would feel like a king.

Linderhof Palace

The gold sculpture shoots out water. I saw it as I arrived, but then it stopped. It must be timed and only goes off for a few minutes at a time. 

We were not allowed to take pictures inside, so it will be hard to communicate how ornate things were on the inside. Each of the main rooms had a theme. One was filled with some of the finest porcelain. Not only that, but each room was partnered with a servants closet. The servants would wait in these small rooms till when they were needed, however these rooms were not heated and could get extremely cold. In Ludwig's main chamber, the table at which he sat and ate would be raised and lowered from the kitchen to his room. His food just magically appeared. I would want one of those.

Ludwig was a strange man. He was taller than the average man. He did spend a lot of his peoples money to build his palaces. He also had a strange fascination with Richard Wagner. In each of his homes he attempted to have the facilities that would allow Wagner to come play for him. However Wagner never came. Ludwig was just a bit obsessed I think. Lastly, Ludwig slept mostly during the day and studied by night. He favorite pastime was reading. So he was a strange man, but not so strange that I cannot relate.

After the tour of the palace, I travelled up through the gardens to the Grotto. All that I knew was that Ludwig had a cave on the premise. I thought that it would be worth my time to get there. I was shocked to see what I saw.  The cave was man made. Ludwig made this cave based on Wagner's operas. It came fashioned with a lake and waterfall. He literally went all out to get Wagner to come perform for him. If there were every performances in the Grotto, Ludwig was the sole audience member. He would either sit on his perch above the lake or in the boat that floated in the middle of the lake.

After Linderhof, we hopped onto the autobahn going toward Salzburg. We were going to spend two nights at the Blobergerhof just outside of Salzburg. I drove most of the way. I just really like the autobahn. Before we left Reutte, we checked with several people to make sure that we did not need an Austrian toll sticker. We were told that one does not need a sticker if you are going to Salzburg. However, at the first exit that we took to go into Salzburg we were pulled over by some officials. We were charged with a 120 euro ticket for not having an 8 dollar sticker. It was stupid, and we had to pay it right then and there. In their truck they had credit card machines...the whole shebang. We paid it and went along on our way. We thought the entire experience was stupid because only rented cars would be without the sticker. So the system attacks tourists who don't know anything. That was our only speed bump of the day. We settled into our hotel and moved into Salzburg to see a part of the city. We scoped out the places where I wanted to go so we knew where to go.

Blobergerhof

For dinner we went to the Augustiner. The Augustiner is a huge beer garden that was a former monastery. My mom's friend Rick (who showed me around Berlin) introduced my mom to the Augustiner. At home my parents have matching Augustiner bier steins. I got some schwinehaxe and some beer. The food was ok but the beer was good. When we were full we took the bus back to our hotel and called it a night.