Who doesn’t want to see a castle? Chris sooo owed it to me because I survived tomato hell. And if you are going to do a castle, I hear this is THE one to do. It is Neuschwanstein Castle in southern Germany’s Bavaria region. It was built in the 1800’s by King Ludwig II of Bavaria. They worked on it for numerous years, but it was never finished due to the King’s untimely death. Apparently he died under suspicious circumstances after being declared insane by a psychiatrist whom he had never met. Supposedly he drowned, but, he drowned head first in a couple feet of water, along with the psychiatrist. Sound fishy? Yep. They theorize his advisors had him killed for several reasons. First because he was going to fire them all. Second because no one was happy about the fact that he was spending all this money on a new castle high on a hill in the Alps. And lastly because he was gay and dating the composer Wagner. Getting more suspicious by the minute isn’t it?

Anyway, it is a beautiful castle. It is also called the fairy tale castle because this is the castle that Walt Disney modeled his Magic Kingdom castle after. Huge round pointed towers and big rooms painted with scenes from Wagner’s operas. There was even a room that was made to look like a cave. A cave! It had fake stalagmites and stalagtites! And look at the 360 degree views. High on a hill with the alps all around. Makes you wish you were a king doesn’t it?

The worst part of the day though was the journey. We took Mike’s Bike Tour Castle Excursion and landed in Fussen, Germany two hours later than expected due to train and bus troubles. There was supposed to be a bike tour that had to removed due to time constraints and the guide rushed us the rest of the day because the train back to Munich only came at certain times. It wasn’t their fault but still it kinda spoiled my fairy tale day. If I had it to do again, I would have spent the night in the quaint town of Fussen and enjoyed the scenery of the green rolling hills, the alps and the clean fresh mountain air. I would have taken it much slower and had more of a good time.

Tags: Bavaria,Mike's Bike Tour Castle Excursion,Neuschwanstein Castle
Categories: Becky Blogs, Germany
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How do you desbribe chaos on paper? It even makes me have a loss of words. We (Chris, Julie and I) took the EARLY train from Kaiserslautern to Munich in the southern region of Germany known as Bavaria today so we would not miss one of the opening parades of Oktoberfest on the opening weekend. There were SO many people.

Oktoberfest begain as a wedding celebration for Ludwig I, one of the past kings of Bavaria back in the 1800’s, if I remember correctly, and it has been repeated since then every year. I am sure that initially it was just music and dancing and food, but roll the clock forward to 2006 and now it is just crazy. Try to imagine mixing a state fair, and amusement park and a frat house party all together and you are pretty close to what it is like.

The main street has all these tents that they assemble new every year. Each major beer company sponsors a tent and on top of that alot of them have themes (fish house vs. family orriented vs. college crazy). Most bavarian Germans wear the traditional clothes to Oktoberfest. Men in their Leiderhosen and fancy socks and women in their dirndl (which basically makes it looks like their breasts are in a wonderbra and about to pop out of the outfit. Chris thought that it was great! LOL)

So in the tents is where most of the action happens. You are lucky to get a seat if you don’t have reservations. Once you finally find a place there is alot of food that you can order, but most people it seems survive on huge 1 Liter mugs of beer, along with pretzels with sweet mustard and huge radishes. The beer is brewed special for Oktoberfest and I was told had an alcohol content of over 6.2%. All I know is that it didn’t take long for it to knock me on my ass. Also in each of the tents, high on a platform, is a band. They play traditional German songs of course and everyone sings and dances on the tables, but some of the songs they played that really drove the crowd into a frenzy were like Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd and Country Road by John Denver. Yeah you heard me right, John Freakin’ Denver. They knew all the words, and in fact, of the three tents we drank beer in, we heard that song being played three separate times!!!

After all the beer you can then stumble over to where all the rides are. The lines were short and they were all fun. All were except the Olympic Rings. Five loop-d-loops all in a row after drinking about 1 1/2 - 2 L of beer is never a good idea! Just trust me on this one, O.K.? That is unless you like vertigo and nausea, and if so, go on ahead. I dare ya!

Tags: Bavaria,Munich,Oktoberfest
Categories: Becky Blogs, Germany
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