Cloisters and Kings

After a restless night, I awoke Tuesday morning, ate a large breakfast of chewy brötchen, ham, cheese, butter, homemade jam and coffee. I have taken to eating a breakfast worthy of a lumberjack and then not eating again until dinner. It serves three purposes; to take advantage of the breakfast provided in my room rate, to minimize expenses, and to try to control my food intake.

I drove downtown after breakfast and shopped in some of the stores, including several wood carvings shops. I have two carved horses, purchased in Oberammergau over the years which are very special to me. Oberammergau is famous for it's wood carving, and religious themes are popular. Some carvings are natural wood, some are stained, and some are painted in soft hues. I found a gift for one of my children, but not the other. Now I will need to keep an eye out for something special for my other "baby".

After my shopping foray, I drove to the nearby town of Ettal, a tiny town which features a beautiful cloister, where the resident monks brew beer. The church has an enormous dome, the inside of which is painted in lovely, soft pastels. The church is very ornate with lots of gilt trim and a gorgeous pipe organ. The town is quite small, so after I visited the lovely church, I drove to Garmisch for some shopping. A kind lady gave me her parking ticket which still had 45 minutes left on it. How kind! I wandered the downtown area, poking into shops, but did not find anything I wanted to purchase. The highest mountain peak in Germany, the Zugspitze, is in Garmisch, but I was disappointed to see there was not one flake of snow on the towering, rocky peak. Maybe it's always bare of snow in the summer, I just don't remember. You can take a gondola to the top of the Zupspitze and have a eagle's eye view of the alps into Austria. An incredible experience which I did with Tim and my parents one year.

On the drive back to Oberammergau, I turned left and traveled a narrow, green valley edged with tall pines to one of the castles of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, Linderhof. Ludwig was quite the character. He built three castles, Linderhof, Neuschwanstein, and Herrenchiemsee, nearly bankrupting Bavaria to do so. Of the three, only Linderhof was completed. A fourth castle, Falkenstien, was planned, but never begun. Ludwig was a bit reclusive and had an obsession with the work of composer, Richard Wagner, and sponsored his music. I have heard he also had an obsession with Richard himself, but we won't visit that topic now. Ludwig was essentially imprisoned and died under mysterious circumstances. A web search will give you more details of this eccentric and interesting king, if you're interested.

Linderhof is more a small palace, than a castle, and Ludwig lived here alone, never entertaining visitors. 5 kilos of gold were used to decorate the royal apartments, and the bedroom contains towering, elaborate Meissen china mirrors. They were really beautiful! There was also a china statue of a Polish King on horseback wearing a Roman style soldier's uniform, painfully white legs bare and wrapped around a rearing stallion. The king had the pudgy, doughy, porcine facial features one often sees on portraits from the 1600 and 1700's. Not an attractive man. When I commented on this fact, the tour guide shared that he was rumored to have 150 mistresses and in excess of 300 children, so he must have something going for him! I was on a small tour of only 5 people, so the tour guide was able to answer questions and give us a more personal tour, which was very interesting. I walked the grounds a bit after the tour and looked at some of the gardens and fountains before walking back to the car and driving home.