Gruß Gott!!!

After a rather stressful couple of weeks, I’ve taken a trip to Germany.  In my previous travels, I’ve visited Chiemsee, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Mainz-Kastel, and the Rhine river valley.  This time around, I have the opportunity to visit some areas I’ve never been to before; mostly in Bavaria.

To start with, I finally got the chance to see Neuschwanstein Castle.  Even if you’ve never heard of the place, chances are that you might have seen pictures of it on postcards, puzzles, desktop backgrounds, and the like; it’s one of the most popular castles in the world.  So popular, it provided the inspiration for the Disney castle.  Much like the Disney castle, Neuschwanstein is an impressively tall, handsome-looking building with tall turrets and spires.  As a relatively modern castle (only 142 years old), it’s still very much intact and clean.

From the nearby town, it takes 20-30 minutes to hike up a massive hill to get to the castle.  It takes even longer to reach the bridge where I took this picture (it’s a popular angle):



Neuschwanstein Castle!

Past the castle gates, there’s a nifty little courtyard with stairs leading up to a second courtyard.  Inside the castle, I had to traverse through three different spiral staircases to see the different floors and rooms.  Contrary to what I’ve heard before, I found the castle’s interior impressive.  The gilded throne room is gorgeous; all surrounded in gold with intricate and exotic wall, ceiling, and floor paintings.  At first glance it looked majestic, but as I examined the patterns and structures, I could easily see its Byzantine influence.  Throughout the rest of the castle, I got to behold a number of rooms with more intricate paintings, murals, designs, and wood-carvings.  It’s all especially interesting because, in accordance with King Ludwig II's obsession with fairy tales, the castle overall had a magical feeling, and every piece of art and architecture was homage to the tales of old.  There must have been at least a few different times when I spotted a reference to the Nibelungen legend.

The painted cieling of the Wieskirche.



In addition to seeing Schwangau, the tour also visited the Wieskirche (aka, the Church in the Meadow).  Of all the German churches I’ve seen, this one probably has the best, most intricate, and most beautiful interior artwork and architecture I’ve seen.

The next day, I took a visit to the Zugspitze.  It was a semi-comfortable 20-minute train ride to the top of the mountain.  It was a hot summer day when I started, but at the mountaintop, I was surprised when I saw snow on the ground and felt thin cold air going into my lungs.  The train stop itself provided ample opportunity for some very good pictures, but a cable-car provided access to the very top of the mountain.  The view was incredible; these might be some of the coolest pictures I’ve taken!



The view from Germany's highest mountain peak.


The last biggest highlight I had was visiting the Dachau concentration camp.  My parents tried to dissuade me from seeing this; I suppose it’s hard to articulate the exact reasoning behind seeing a place where thousands and thousands of people were brutally tortured and murdered.  I suppose I would chalk it up to a combination of morbid fascination, interest in WWII history, and a desire to feel inspired for my “Jaegermeister” novel (part of which may take place inside a concentration camp).  At the very least, I felt it was something I should experience at least once in a lifetime, to fully understand and appreciate just how harrowing and hellish the holocaust was.  Visiting the camp has exceeded all my expectations; the place is much bigger and more intact than I imagined it would be, and it’s loaded with informative displays and panels.  Walking through the camp, I definitely get a better feeling for how the place is laid out, how it would operate, and what kind of misery the people there would have gone through.  It is definitely a somber place and a sobering experience; I can understand that most sane people probably wouldn’t want to know about these kinds of places, but I believe it’s important to learn and understand the extent of the holocaust’s impact, so that such atrocities won’t be repeated.



Dachau.

On top of all that, I also managed to see some sights in Munich, Garmisch, Austria, Mainz, and Wiesbaden.  It has been a very full trip; I must have seen dozens of sights, sampled plenty of German food and beer, and taken hundreds of pictures.  I’ve also indulged in some shopping, including multiple cheap albums from fleamarkets (I was quite happy to find some albums from the German groups I’m interested in:  Die Boehse Onkelz, Die Toten Hosen, and Seeed.  I was also surprised to see that Weird Al Yankovic put out a new album; how the frakk could I miss that?!).  It’s all been very eventful and pleasing all at once.

This much-welcome break has ended, but I’ll be spending the next few days off, catching up with daily affairs, and maybe doing some more writing (finally).  For whatever reason, I started off a “Star Wars” novel while I was away; I’ve always wanted to do one, but never really had a good plot or original characters until now.  I’m not sure if it’ll ever be a fully-published official story, but it’ll at least be a fun bit of fan fiction.  I’m also evaluating “Der Jaegermeister,” and should be working on bunches of other projects.



Die Jaeger!!!