Oh dear, it rained all night and all morning, so day one of week twelve turned in to a nothing day. No photos, no walks, no anything. We blobbed around in Eileen all day, got everything washed during a four-hour marathon of queuing for the one washing machine and then the one tumble dryer. We both did some reading and labelled all of our photos and spent time looking out of the window at any movements going on in the campsite.
Many campers make good use of their bicycles. Not only do they head out to buy their daily bread and supplies, or go for a ride around town, but we’ve seen a lady with her washing up bowl strapped on the back heading up to the washing-up area. Someone had their rubbish hanging from the handlebars and delivered it to the bins. One had his cassette toilet strapped on the back to take up to the WC disposal point, it must have been a bit heavy; don’t go there !!! We’ve seen folk cycle to the sunbeds by the swimming pool (when there is one) and one man even had his toilet roll strapped on the back rack as he headed up to the toilet block. We’ve even spotted one chap who couldn’t be bothered to walk just forty metres to the shower block; perhaps he’s addicted to his bicycle !
By 6pm, to avoid getting shut-in syndrome, we walked in to Reutte and had dinner at an Asian restaurant. Somehow managing to decipher the German translations of Chinese meals to get three very tasty dishes.
The alarm rang at 6:30am and we showered, ate breakfast, packed up and were out of the campsite gates by 8:30am. We had lots to see today and needed to get going. We crossed the border into Germany and drove past Füssen to an area of numerous car parks, souvenir shops and a ticket office, which was slotted between two castles. We queued for our tickets and were allocated the 11:05am tour. That gave us time for hot chocolates and a shared berry cheesecake before embarking on the half-hour walk up the steep hill to Neuschwanstein Castle.
The groups are rather large, no photos are allowed and you are rather rushed through in 35 minutes, but the whole castle is so wonderfully ‘over the top’, that it’s certainly mind boggling and a buzz to see. King Ludwig II was apparently a fan of Wagner and many of the walls are painted with scenes from Wagner’s operas. Sadly the ‘imaginative and theatrical king’ only lived there for 170 days during construction and the palace was never completed until after his mysterious death.
After a ramble over to Marien Bridge, for the lovely view back towards the castle and the valley beyond, we returned down through the forest to Eileen. The Hohenschwangau Castle on the other side of all the car parks was the palace that he grew up in, and apparently this is also quite flamboyant, but we had decided to see another one of his castles further east and there’s only so many castles that one can do in a day.
So we took the main road north via Wildsteig and back south via Oberammergau and turned back east towards Linderhof Castle. It is a tiny castle and fabulously over-ornate again, but more intimate and I can see why this was King Ludwig’s favourite retreat.
When we left the building, the rain was pouring down and so our dawdle around the grounds and garden became more of a mad dash from Venus Grotto to Moorish Kiosk to Temple Of Venus Rotunda and the Moroccan Temple. All of which were wonderfully dramatic and worth getting wet for.
We were fairly soaked when we finally got back to Eileen, especially as my rain jacket now seems to have sprung leaks, so we just threw everything behind the seats and set off south. While Rodney drove past Garmisch, Partenkirchen and Wank Mountain (yes, really!!!), I researched the books for a campsite as close as possible. As we crossed back from Germany into Austria at Mittenwald, we turned up the Leutaschtal Valley. The road was steep, only single lane in places and had quite a few hairpin bends, but it finally opened up into a wider valley and we pulled in to Holiday Camping near Leutasch. It turned out to be a 5-star campsite; haven’t tried one of those before. The friendly owner gave us all the information we needed and told us to pick a vacant spot, anywhere we fancied. As it was still raining, we picked a pitch fairly close to the shower block and when we got around to visiting said block, we thought we were in a hotel!!! Carpets, flowers, sofas; it’s luxurious! Neither of us felt like cooking, so we wandered over to the restaurant on-site for dinner, and had huge, tasty Austrian meals, accompanied by some yodelling on the music player and then we opted for an early night. Two castles and two countries in one day had made us both very tired.
