Received 09/15/2009 15:06
Tues, Sep 15 - Sightseeing in Germany - Updated
The day was planned for me to take a bunch of the team members to see two beautiful castles in Germany, about 1 hour 45 minutes away. But when we started to gather everyone in the morning, people kept opting out (someone spread the story that it was a 3 hour drive and so many came up with reasons not to go). So, in the end, 7 of us went, only two team members and myself from the Team side, plus Val Rutledge, a canine massage therapist from Florida who is also my roommate (I’ve known her for a few years and she is the one who runs one of the camps I attend in Florida each year); plus four other supporters. Due to liability reasons, only those associated with the team rode in the Team Van (myself (driver); plus Marcy Mantell (Wave, Small Dog Team) and Val); Paulette Schwartzendruber (Rush, medium team sheltie) and her friend followed in one car; and three other supporters followed in their car. This way, it kept things most flexible as far as if someone wanted to send more or less time than the others, no one was trapped.
We got away from the hotel about 9:30; our first stop was to “drop” one of the supporters off to pick up their rental car, but as things turned out, they wanted to caravan with us (I had the GPS) and so we ended up waiting about 20 minute for them to get their car. Now we were in downtown Dornbirn, and so we decided to drive by the event site just to get look at it. So that took us another 20 minutes. Our final delay was when I took a critical look at the gas tank and decided I’d really prefer to start this trip off with a full tank. So we stopped at a gas station. Val jumped out of the van to fuel it up, and then we spent another 5 minutes figuring out how to get the damn gas cap off! We never did get it. Had to call on one of the supporters (Eric) who had stronger hands than we did to twist it off. He took hold and gave it a might PUSH in and it came off easily. So, sheepishly, Val fueled the car and as she was finished, I hopped out to close up the fuel tank, only to have diesel fuel pour out onto my new running shoes! Not a good start to the day. But finally, we got on the road to our destination about 10:45.
George (my GPS) got us out of Dornbirn easily but then started to take us on what looked like a whole lot of back roads, but we kept following him. We ended up off the main highway and heading across the German countryside on small, two lane, twisty turny roads for what seemed like forever! But, as things turned out, we had the chance to see a lot of beautiful farm countryside with lots of rolling green, green hills; very quaint farmhouses who almost all had absolutely stunning window boxes. Some kind of colorful flowers decorated every window of the houses. Really wanted to get a photo of them, but there was absolutely NO place to safely pull off those little narrow roads in order to shoot a picture! So, we just admired as we drove by.
We arrived at the castle area about 12:30. After parking and figuring out where to get our tickets, we bought a “Royal Ticket” that got us into both castles with guided tours in English. Each tour had an assigned number and we knew from our friends who had been on this trip a few days ago that, if you miss your tour, you are just out of luck. The tours were conducted in English or German and since my German is limited to yes, no, thank you and “one beer and one bratwurst please”, I didn’t want to end up on a German language tour. This history of the two castles we went to today are linked. The first castle, Hohenschwangau Castle, is privately owned; the second, Neuschwanstein Castle, is owned by the state. Both castles were very impressive; Neuschwanstein Castle is what Walt Disney patterned the main Castle at Disneyland after. The area the castles were in is called Schwangau and the heraldic symbol is the swan (schwan), so of course there were swans all throughout the décor and furnishings of both castles. After purchasing your tickets, you have the option of taking a horse carriage, a bus, or walking up to the lower castle, which is Hoenschwangau. We elected to walk to that one. It was a beautiful day and the walk was only about 10 minutes, although it was a steep climb up to the castle. For the tours, when you buy your tickets, you are assigned a tour number based on the language and whenyou bought your ticket. If you miss your tour, you end up on a tour of a different language. Since my German is limited to yes, no, thank you, and “one beer and a bratwurst please”, I knew I’d better be on time for the English tour!
While we waited for the tour, we wandered the grounds of the castle, admiring the panoramic views of the valley below the castle. It was just stunningly beautiful, as was the view of the mountains behind the castle. The photos I took simply don’t do it justice. I knew that would happens which is why I also bought a CD with 76 different photos of the castles! The tour of Hohenschwangau was very good. We had a very articulate tour guide who spoke excellent English with almost no trace of accent. But, as I have found with other similar tours in the past, it doesn’t take long for all the rooms to start to look alike. In these cases, it was lots of gilded silver, very ornate bronze, lots of paintings on the walls and displays of extravagant gifts given to the king. It was interesting, but I was glad when it was done. It was such a beautiful day that I was glad to get out into the sun. I was also hungry! So, we had about 65 minutes until the tour of Neuschwanstein and it was advertised as a 40 minute walk. So that gave us about 25 minutes to grab something to eat. Val and I decided we were going to make the walk up the hill (mountain?); the others took the easy way out and opted to take the bus. So Val and I said we’d meet them at the top and headed down to the bratwurst stand to grab some lunch. It was really good! Hot, fresh bun, and really spicy mustard. We munched on the brat as we walked up the more level part of the climb. Then, we headed up the more strenuous part. It really wasn’t too bad for us, but we are both in pretty good shape, although we were both breathing pretty hard by the time we reached the top. There were a lot more people coming down than were going up. And most of the ones going up were fairly young. We met a young woman from Scotland who was hiking around Europe with her boyfriend. She had a really big pack on her back which undoubtedly made the climb even harder. It actually only took us about 20 minutes to make the climb. The path was wide and smooth; it was the same path as the horse carriages took, so we had to be careful where we walked—not to avoid the horses, but to avoid their leftovers. When we reached the top, it was worth the walk! The castle looked like something out of a fairy tale. We had about 20 minutes before our tour, so we admired the views, took some photos, and waited.
The tour guide for this castle was not nearly as good, but gave some interesting facts about the castle. This one was much more ornate and much darker than the first. The tour lasted about 20 minutes and then we headed up to Mary’s Bridge, a footbridge over a nearby gorge. It faces the south side of the castle which is very striking, but unfortunately for us, right now that side of the castle is being renovated and so all we got to see was scaffolding. We still got some good photos and had fun peering over the edge down into the stream /river below. There was a beautiful waterfall almost directly under the bridge. It was a little eerie to step out on the bridge (with the 100 or so others who were there).
It was now time to head back down the hill as it was getting late and I really didn’t want to be driving back in the dark. As on the way up, Val and I chose to walk down while the others took the bus. There were two options for the way down: one steeper and slipperier than the other, but it was faster, so we opted for the steeper one. We both knew we’d pay for it tomorrow! But we made the 40 minute walk down in 12 minutes and ended up right at the car park virtually right next to our van. Of course, that’s when we realized we hadn’t set any particular meeting point to rejoin our friends. So we started walk back UP towards the ticket plaza and met up with everyone.
The drive home was just about the reverse of the trip out except for the last 30 minutes. But it was still mostly 2 lane road through beautiful country. We got back to the hotel at 7:30, only to find the parking lots overflowing with cars, mostly due a big buss that was parked diagonally across th little lot, taking up most of the space and forcing all the other cars to park every which way they could. The German Team had arrived. So, after looking around, I spotted some space in a corner, next to the motorbikes that I thought I could squeeze into. I just hoped I would be able to extract it in the morning when cars had gone.
