All Roads Lead to Neuschwanstein
Whenever we plan our summer holidays, my wife will declare “Let’s go somewhere with a beach”. Coming from a landlocked state, my wife and her family have always found beach holidays exotic. I don’t hold the same opinion. Living on an island for a couple of decades will do that. I’m from the north east of England, so beach holidays were the norm, after all, the beach was only a few stops on the Metro line. I’ve argued that visiting Newcastle upon Tyne is a beach holiday and a chance to see the British family in one convenient trip, but my wife has yet to agree. Apparently eating fish and chips while overlooking the north sea is not the same as sunning ourselves on the Italian Riviera. She may have a point, but with a limited window for summer holidays, it can be difficult to find the right balance. Holidays to Britain are great, but they aren’t the same as normal holidays. In my experience they’re often busier, especially if your family live in different towns or cities. Thankfully there is a simple way to break this holiday deadlock: invite the family to Germany.
There are several advantages to this solution, the most obvious being that we don’t have to do any of the leg work. It’s not that we object to travelling, but since having our daughter, we’ve become a lot more cautious about travelling long distances. Taking a two year old on holiday to anywhere is a gamble, we’re basically travelling with a time-bomb that at any point could explode in our faces. You can’t reason with two-year-olds, they’re driven by pure impulse. We could bribe our daughter, but aside from her dolls, the only thing she treats with any level of seriousness is chocolate. Filling out daughter with sugar does feels like trying to disarm a bomb by hitting it really hard with another, much larger bomb.
The only real disadvantage of having family come stay is planning what to actually do with them. Initially this was easy; most of my family had never been to Germany, so taking them for a walk to the local bakery was an excursion in itself. After a decade of visits, wandering over to buy some cakes is so normal they don’t even take photos of them anymore. My family also tend to do more research before coming and they know more about what to expect when they travel to see us. I spend most of their visits driving to random lakes they’ve discovered online, or trying to find the best supplier of Pfefferbieße so people can take a meaty souvenir home. Sometimes though, it’s worth reminding family that there are some truly amazing things to see in Germany. In those moments, we pack everyone into the car and head to Neuschwanstein.
Neuschwanstein is one of the most iconic sites in the whole of Germany. Situated among the extraordinary scenery of the Bayerische Voralpen, it looks like something ripped from a Grimm’s Fairy Tale. It may look much older, but the castle was actually built in the middle of the 19th century by the eccentric monarch Ludwig II of Bavaria. In charge during a turbulent period in German history, Ludwig spent little of his time on politics and instead used his wealth to build a series of elaborate castles, culminating in the fantastic Neuschwanstein. The castle includes an indoor cave, taps that flow with ice cold Alpine water and a throne room (minus the throne). Ludwig was inspired by the works of Richard Wagner, and drew heavily from German history and folklore. The theatricality of Schloss Neuschwanstein was cemented by Ludwig’s appointment of Christian Jank, a stage designer, who created the initial sketches of the castle which were converted into architectural plans. Sadly, Ludwig’s obsession with Neuschwanstein and his many other expensive castle building projects were ultimately his undoing. After accumulating 14 million Marks worth of personal debt, his projects were considered by his ministers to be negatively impacting the Bavarian economy, despite Ludwig never having spent public money. He was deposed after accusations of insanity and a few days later was found drowned, alongside the only witness, his physician.
Ludwig’s castle building, coupled with his mysterious death, have created a booming tourist economy in the south of Bavaria. Once considered the follies of a mentally unstable king, they are now incredibly popular, and draw thousands of visitors from around the world who want to see a real fairytale castle, or hear the theories that swirl around the monarchs death. Even if the accusations of appropriating state funds had been true, Ludwig’s legacy has paid that debt in full hundreds of times over. At Neuschwanstein, visitors can make their way up the mountain side, either on foot, by bus or in a horse drawn cart. Arriving at the gates, tourists can take the very short, but interesting guided tour through the finished rooms of the castle. Although Ludwig spent a lot of money, the castle was never actually finished and there remains many areas that are shadows of what was originally intended.
When I tell German friends that I’m planning another visit, they’ll quietly admit that they’ve never actually been. In fact, very few people I know have ever bothered to make the journey. In fairness to them, Neuschwanstein has the reputation as a tourist trap, which is made abundantly clear the moment someone attempts to sell you a range of overpriced dish towels featuring Bavarian mountain scenes or a €400 cuckoo clock. It can be tough navigating a path through safari vest wearing geriatrics and groups of people inexplicably photographing everything using their iPads. If it wasn’t for my need to keep various family members entertained, I would probably have settled with just the single visit. Yet, it is one of the most iconic images of Bavaria, and one that should be experienced at least once, if not more. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been to see Neuschwanstein, but it never fails to take my breath away.
Image Credit
Photo by Ruben Hanssen on Unsplash
Photo by Massimiliano Morosinotto on Unsplash
Photo by Victor Malyushev on Unsplash
Photo by Nick Randle on Unsplash
