GERMANY - Mad King and Madding Crowd

I have now travelled down by train to Munich for a few days and with today being the Ascension Day public holiday here, I had planned to get a train up into the Bavarian Alps and do a bit of hiking. However, the weather has not really played ball. The forecast was 100% chance of light rain, turning to heavy rain and most importantly visibility was shown as poor. There really is no point going up into the mountains if you can't see anything. 

So instead I braved the tourist masses (1.5 million a year) and got a train to Fuessen to visit "Mad" King Lugwig II's Neuschwanstein Castle. 

At Fuessen station, the tourist masses queued to catch the shuttle bus for the 2.5 mile journey to the castle. I of course had a wander around the town and then walked following the cycle path. 

Fuessen

As this was a last minute trip, I hadn't bought a ticket in advance and with it being a public holiday I wasn't really expecting to be able to go inside but there was space on the 2:30pm English language tour so I duly paid my €21 entrance fee at the ticket office at the bottom of the hill. The tourist masses then either paid €5 for another shuttle bus up the hill, or paid more for a horse drawn carriage ride - but the lady in the ticket office obviously sensing I was having none of that, gave me a map showing the footpath up to the castle entrance.

There were quite a lot of people on the tour, but the guide was very good and I would recommend a visit although maybe not on a public holiday. 

The castle was built as a private retreat for the King, somewhere he could escape to, almost in a fantasy world away from his official court. It was started in 1869 but as Ludwig II died in 1886 the castle was never finished. The Bavarian royal family just tidied up what had been completed and opened it to the public almost straight away with the castle proving to be a nice little earner until control passed to the Bavarian state at the end of WW1. The House of Wittelsbach still, however, gain an income from nearby Hohenschangau Castle.

They don't allow photography or filming inside - which actually made a nice change, not having to jostle with the Instagrammers flicking their hair back and making sure the camera gets their best side in front of a vase they know nothing about - I know, I'm so cynical.

But as you can imagine, in a castle built in the late 1800's its very over the top, the chandeliers are all crown shaped studded with imitation glass jewels.

View of the Alpsee from the castle balcony

If you don't know the sad story of Ludwig II, he was quite introverted and did not really take well to public life after ascending to the throne at the age of 19. His ministers therefore found him quite difficult to deal with. In 1886 at the age of 40 a group of ministers conspired to depose the King by declaring him insane and unfit to rule. He was eventually taken into house arrest and a day later both he and one of his doctors were found dead in Lake Starnberg. Officially he commited suicide but as he was a good swimmer, many people over the years have suspected foul play.

Having got my bearings, I walked back to Fuessen via the Schwansee (Swan Lake) and a track through the forest, once again far away from the madding crowds.

There will be more from King Ludwig II and the Bavarian Royal Family tomorrow in Munich!

GERMANY - The Mighty Rhine

I have now moved from France to Germany and am staying in Bingen in the Rhine Valley. Rather than just nipping over the border from Strasbourg - the local trams actually also serve Kehl in Germany - I went the long way round up through Metz to Luxembourg. This not only meant that I got to ride one of CFL's (Luxembourg Railways) new double deckers but also have a lovely scenic journey along the Moselle Valley to Koblenz and thence down the Rhine Valley to Bingen.

So today I have been hiking along the Rhine Valley following the Rheinsteig long distance footpath from Ruedesheim to Lorchhausen. First things first though, there are no bridges across this part of the Rhine so to get on the correct side I had to take a ferry across. Once in Ruedesheim I could have walked up the side of the valley but as I had 20km of walking ahead of me I decided to go up via the cable car. This wasn't the plush type of gondola you get in the ski resorts this was a more rickety affair, that in my book - me not liking them - was more a series of buckets hung from a cable. Still it got me there whisking up above the vineyards to the Niederwald Monument.

The Niederwald Monument commemorates the victory during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/1871 and the establishment of the German State in 1871. The bronze statue is of Germania, the personification of the German Empire - think Britainnia in relation to the British Empire - and dominates the landscape. There are also good views from up there.

Hiking in Germany is very easy as everything is very well marked

I continued high above the Rhine and its steep sided vineyards, dropping down into the sleepy village of Assmannshausen and then back up through the vineyards to continue before dropping down into Lorch and continuing at river level to the neighbouring settlement of Lorchhausen from where I caught a train back to Ruedesheim. Some of the views of the river and valley were suberb.

It would be interesting to return in the Autumn when they are harvesting the grapes because some of the terraces are really steep so it can't be an easy task. Once back in Ruedesheim, though, it was time for a glass of the local Riesling and the ferry back to across to Bingen.

FRANCE - 24 Hours in Strasbourg

Around 1.5 hours along the line from Reims is Strasbourg the capital of Alsace and a city which has a German influence due to its location right up against the Franco-German border and the fact that over the centuries Alsace has been ruled by both countries.

Over the years I have seen several stork's nests on my travels around Europe patrticularly in Southern France and Northern Spain. Alsace is famous for its storks and large numbers nest in the region each year. Because its May, the time of year when the birds are tending their young, there are lots of storks around Strasbourg at the moment. As is usual with wildlife these pictures don't really do them justice but I can assure you I saw several nests that had chicks in them,

The city itself is very walkable and the old historic quarter of timber framed buildings sits on an island in the River Ill just before it flows into the Rhine.

There is also another Notre Dame Cathedral, this time one that has one of the biggest astronomical clocks I have ever seen. It operates on both National Time and Local Time - the local Strasbourg time being half an hour behind Central European Time. CET is calculated from a meridan near Prague and as Strasbourg is roughtly half way between Prague and Greenwich this accounts for the half hour difference. As far as the clock is concerned, local time takes precedence, so all the action - chiming, moving figures etc - happens on the half hour rather than the full hour. It has a pertetual calendar and every New Years Eve calculates the dates of the movable feasts like Easter for the following year using the Comput Ecclesiastique mechanism.

All pretty impressive stuff.

One set of hands showing National Time, one set showing Strasbourg Time.
There is a similar multi handed clock in Corn Street in Bristol showing London (Railway) Time and Bristol Time.

Legend has it that this chap cast aspersions regarding the skills of the Master Mason and the structural soundness of the cathedral during its construction. The Mason therefore carved him in stone to forever stare at a pillar in the cathedral waiting for it to fall down!

FRANCE - Bubbles lots of bubbles

I'm back in France for the beginning of this trip, in the wonderful city of Reims - Home of Champagne - and the first big question is "Why have I not been here before?" It's only around 45 minutes or so by TGV from Paris and so easy to get to, yet is not packed with tourists.

Even without the bubbly it would be a great place to visit. The main sight is the Notre Dame Cathedral, which is a Westminster Abbey type building, as it's the place where the French Kings were crowned. It has some stunning stained glass, both ancient and modern including some by Marc Chagall. 

Chagall Windows

If you know your Anglo French history - which many of us don't because its not really covered in school - you will know that during the Hundred Years War the English laid seige to the city of Orleans in 1429. Then along comes seventeen year old Joan of Arc leading an army who somehow sent the English packing many believe by divine intervention. This then led to a chain of events that cumulated in Charles VII being crowned king in Reims Cathedral with Joan of Arc at his side. Don't worry folks, us nasty English got our own back, burning Joan at the stake in Rouen two years later. She is of course now a saint and France's patron saint at that.

Joan d'Arc Chapel

The city itself contains many grand buildings but it is important to remember that the Cathedral and a large part of the city were severely damaged during WW1 so many buildings have been reconstructed.

The city's wealth of course comes from the "liquid gold" made locally - Champagne. Many of the Champagne Houses offer visits, where they will explain the production process whilst taking you around the cellars carved out of the chalk rock on which the city stands, where thousands and thousands of bottles of Champage are maturing.

I visited Taittinger, one of the largest Champagne Houses but it's still family owned with the current members of the Taittinger family being fourth generation. I joined a group for superb tour of their cellars where there was quite a bit of graffiti carved on the walls because of course as well as storing Champagne they were used as a place of refuge in times of war.

Carving on the wall of the chalk cellars

This was followed by a tasting of Brut Reserve and Prestige Rose - well you have to really don't you? It would be rude not to taste the product!

In the gift shop they had a range of Taittinger products including a Methuselah (equivilent to 8 bottles) at €470.

This is definitely somewhere to return one day, as I now want to visit the other "Champagne Towns" of Epernay and Ay.

BULGARIA - And Home

This is just a quick post to confirm that I have reached home, once more.

The trip has been amazing - Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria - 6 countries, 6 languages, 2 alphabets, 5 currencies.

Three new countries, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria (although I did technically once put my feet in Slovakia on top of a mountain straddling the border in Poland!)

In fact if you add that I left from England and travelled through France and Belgium to get to Germany then its 9 countries in the four weeks I was away.

Any one of the countries or cities I have visited, I would strongly recommend for a visit - even Bucharest (although not for too long there!)

I will leave you with some pictures from late yesterday afternoon. The coach back from Rila dropped me outside the Presidential Palace just as they were about to change the guard.

Until the next trip - take care!

BULGARIA - Rila Monastery

It's a couple of hours drive south of Sofia on the road to Greece to get up into the Rila Mountains to visit the Rila Monastery, but it is well worth it. I went on a formal day tour but we were given 2.5 hours at the Monastery after having had a quick 30 minute introduction to the site by the guide.

Its the largest and most well known Eastern Orthodox monastery in Bulgaria and was founded by St Ivan of Rila during the 900's. The current buildings date from the 19th century and the church houses not only the relics of St Ivan of Rila, but is also the last resting place of Bulgaria's last king, Boris III. Whilst Builgaria aligned itself with Germany in WW2, Boris was not cooperative with many of the demands from Germany, including the deportation of Bulgaria Jews. Boris died after visit to Germany in 1943 and it is widely believed he was posioned whilst there.

The monastary buildings cover a large site up in the mountains, unfortunately low cloud and rain meant that I did not get the big green mountain backdrops to my pictures, but here is a selection.