Fussen 18/5/15

Today we went to Fussen to see the Kings Castles. King Ludwig ruled Bavaria for22 years. He died at 40 in1886. In reality he could have ruled as a pawn of Austria or of Prussia. Rather then deal with politics he spent his time at his childhood home which was Hohenschwangau Castle. While there he designed his fanciful Neuschwanstein Castle. He was a romantic living in a romantic age. He did embrace the technology of the time. His castle had running water, electricity and a telephone. It took him 17 years to build his castle. He lived in it for only 172 days. He was declared mentally unfit to rule Bavaria and was evicted from his castle. Two days later he was found dead in a lake. Was he murdered? Was it suicide? No one knows.

The train ride took about 2.5 hours. We were fortunate to have a day of bright sunlight. The favourite of most people, ourselves included, is Neuschwanstein castle. This is the castle that Walt Disney fell in love with and used as a model for his castle in Disneyland. This castle was taken over by the Nazis during WWII and where they stored all their stolen art treasures. After the war the allies spent a year going through the art and redistributing it. The art filled 49 rail cars.

Both castles are on steep peeks so there is a half hour climb up. We walked from town to the castles and as a reward we had grilled bratwurst when we reached the bottom.

Our train going to Fussen was filled with many people standing. On the way back, we were concerned that we would have to stand so we ran from the bus stop and jumped on the train. We learned after the train left the station that we were on the wrong train. We don't speak German and the conductor did not speak English. He took out his smartphone and showed us where we had to transfer to get the train to Munchen. Joan's cleverness solved the language problem by taking a picture with here phone of his. From one smartphone to another, pretty clever. We arrive an hour earlier than if we took the correct train.

Challenge, how was this selfie done?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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