{"id":2182,"date":"2013-06-27T21:31:02","date_gmt":"2013-06-27T20:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=2182"},"modified":"2026-05-25T04:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T03:56:11","slug":"fairy-tale-castles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2013\/06\/27\/fairy-tale-castles\/","title":{"rendered":"Fairy Tale Castles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh dear, it rained all night and all morning, so day one of week twelve turned in to a nothing day.\u00a0 No photos, no walks, no anything.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Many campers make good use of their bicycles.\u00a0 Not only do they head out to buy their daily bread and supplies, or go for a ride around town, but we\u2019ve seen a lady with her washing up bowl strapped on the back heading up to the washing-up area.\u00a0 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\u2019t go there !!!\u00a0 \u00a0We\u2019ve 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.\u00a0 We\u2019ve even spotted one chap who couldn\u2019t be bothered to walk just forty metres to the shower block; perhaps he’s addicted to his bicycle !<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The alarm rang at 6:30am and we showered, ate breakfast, packed up and were out of the campsite gates by 8:30am.\u00a0 We had lots to see today and needed to get going.\u00a0 We crossed the border into Germany and drove past F\u00fcssen to an area of numerous car parks, souvenir shops and a ticket office, which was slotted between two castles.\u00a0 We queued for our tickets and were allocated the 11:05am tour.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Schloss
Schloss Neuschwanstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 \u2018over the top\u2019, that it\u2019s certainly mind boggling and a buzz to see.\u00a0 King Ludwig II was apparently a fan of Wagner and many of the walls are painted with scenes from Wagner\u2019s operas.\u00a0 Sadly the \u2018imaginative and theatrical king’ only lived there for 170 days during construction and the palace was never completed until after his mysterious death.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Schloss
Schloss Neuschwanstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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\u2019s only so many castles that one can do in a day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Schloss
Schloss Hohenschwangau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

So we took the main road north via Wildsteig and back south via Oberammergau and turned back east towards Linderhof Castle.\u00a0 It is a tiny castle and fabulously over-ornate again, but more intimate and I can see why this was King Ludwig\u2019s favourite retreat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Schloss
Schloss Linderhof<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 All of which were wonderfully dramatic and worth getting wet for.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The set for Wagner’s Tann-H\u00e4user Opera in the Venus Grotto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"
The Moorish Kiosk in the garden at Schloss Linderhof<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 While Rodney drove past Garmisch, Partenkirchen and Wank Mountain (yes, really!!!), I researched the books for a campsite as close as possible.\u00a0 As we crossed back from Germany into Austria at Mittenwald, we turned up the Leutaschtal Valley.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It turned out to be a 5-star campsite; haven\u2019t 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.\u00a0 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!!!\u00a0 Carpets, flowers, sofas; it\u2019s luxurious!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Two castles and two countries in one day had made us both very tired.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Schloss
Schloss Linderhof<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oh dear, it rained all night and all morning, so day one of week twelve turned in to a nothing day.\u00a0 No photos, no walks, no anything.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8384,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2182\/revisions\/8384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}