Leaving Schwarzwald and heading towards the region which used to be united under one king and is now part of both Germany and Austria (Bavaria in Germany and Tirol in Austria) we found ourselves on the autobahn for the first time. I quickly realized that the Fiat Panda was not up to the job, and developed a serious case of car envy. So, we tootled along, and headed off the autobahn and onto plenty of back roads as we made our way toward Reutte, Austria.
After a giant road diversion, and even more driving around on back roads, we arrived in Austria. I ran into a gas station to buy a toll sticker, and was immediately choked by cigarette smoke. In the gas station. Who smokes in a gas station? Apparently all of Austria. Then we headed towards where we were supposed to be camping for the evening, and found that all of the people there smoked as well and the campsite was really crummy, so we headed out onto another back road, and found our way to a fantastic campground near a lake and set up our tent there. It seemed to be a private campground and had a number of permanent caravans set up, but very few guests. The lake had a little boat which would drive you around to different stops, and you could apparently rent your own boats during the high season. It also had a restaurant, at which we had dinner, and a spa and hotel. And it was surrounded by the Austrian Alps. Pretty cool. The lake was an amazing shade of blue-green, which I noticed throughout the region as a standard lake color. I think it was due to the fact that the water came from the Alps or something. No idea, but I’ve hardly ever seen similar lakes in America, and I’m curious now about lakes elsewhere.
The night passed quickly, and we woke up early, to make our way towards touristville. We shook the water off the tent and tossed it back into the car and headed towards the castles of the King Ludwigs. We made a quick stop on the way at a giant home building store to pick up a tarp for under the tent, and of course I had to swing by the paint department to check out the paint chips (thought of Marian!) and lo and behold all the paint was premixed! That’s right, you could pick your color, as long as it was one of about twenty. And it came in a long rectangular bucket. It looked like the ice cream aisle, and while the colors were rich and fantastic, it seemed a bit limiting to me. I wanted to stay and check out all the paint aisles, but we had to get to our goal of castle visits, so we found out tarp and headed out.
After parking and finding the ticket booth, Mom and I were armed with two times to see the most famous storybook-inspiring castles in the world. Both were created by kings of Bavaria, and were built surprisingly recently – in the 1800’s. I was ready to be unimpressed, mostly because Disneyland and Hearst Castle are the only real castles I know, and often other castles which I have visited are relics from the 14th century and are cold and giant and sparsely furnished. We climbed aboard the horse and buggy which took up up to the top of a very steep road, and began the tour of the older of the two castles, home of King Ludwig I, Houfenwehshehin. I was shocked! It was totally fantastic! How someone could have imagined the place, I am still wondering, and I am totally bitter that I wasn’t allowed to take any photographs. The “royal family” still owns the place, and if you can’t take photographs, you then buy more postcards I assume. Also, not one tourist I’ve ever seen can figure out how to turn off the flash on their camera, so overtime it would affect the paintings. That was the best part, the paintings. Every single wall had a painting on it, and each painting told a story. The narrative was very romanticized, and while there were some religious paintings, which was customary for the time, there were also ones which glorified being a knight, or being in love, or pretty much anything else you might imagine. And they were beautiful paintings, with almost invisible brushwork, and a fantastic scale. They were all painted in soft colors, not quite pastels, but were very pleasing to the eye.
It was even better than Disneyland.