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GermanyBavarian Castles tourThe tour started at Calais where we met our courier who it seemed was straight out of Mr Bean! Then after a short unintentional tour of Brussels airport we stayed overnight in a hotel nearby. Next day we opted for the cruise on the very brown looking Rhine via the Lorelei rock. Legend has it that a maiden lured sailors to their deaths here. We continued with our onwards journey with a short visit to Rothenburg a very old medieval town and then arrived at our main base Oberammagau on day 3. Oberammagau is a lovely village located near the Ammergau alps and is famous for the Passion Play held every 10 years. Many of the houses are frescoed with bright paintings and the shops have marvellous wood carvings. In one shop window there was a cow carriage full of milk cans driven by cows carved intricately out of wood but the price put us off buying it - 1000 deutschmarks! Most people are friendly, we only came across one grumpy shopkeeper, the rest all very quick with their Gruss Gotts.
The highlight of the tour were visits to Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein Castles, the latter most people will know from the film Chitty chitty Bang Bang, but is also seen many times on chocolate boxes and jigsaw puzzles! Hohenschwangau looks surprisingly small and is painted very strangely yellow and the items on display on the inside are amazing. One item that stands out deeply in my memory was the banqueting set of knights and guards made of gold which stretched the entire length of the long dining table. Neuschwanstein is much more magnificent looking from the outside - a true fairy tale castle but it is surprisingly empty on the inside. However has King Ludwig apparently bankrupted his own country to build this fairy tale castle perhaps it is not surprising!
We also visited Konigschloss Linderhof.
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