Week 1 - Places

13 July - 19 July: Germany

The Romantic Road is a somewhat touristy path from Würzbug to Füssen. All along the way there are pretty medieval towns to visit, with the quintessential gingerbread looking house made of wood, painted a pale pink, blue or yellow colour, preserved and/or crumbling castles and requisite moats, sweet little bakeries – the whole shebang. Some people (mainly Dutchies) we saw along the way had never heard of this road, but were treated to seeing Brothers Grimms stories unfold before their eyes as the road unwound. Popular for non-Europeans (it seemed lots of Japanese and Americans), the Europeans that stumbled across it were always delighted to discover this Romantische Straβe.

Münstersee is a little lake near the Romantic Road Campsite that we stayed in a village near Creglingen. Oddly, its branding identity is connected to feet. All the signage depicted anthropomorphised feet – they, toes included, pointed, lounged and gesticulated. It was creepy and yet strangely fascinating. We didn’t bathe there.
Rothenburg ob der Tauber has really good latte macchiato, pastries and fortress walls with awesome lookouts over the old town’s limits.

Dinkelbühl contains nursery rhyme type houses. One, positively covered in ivy, can be mistaken for a supernatural shimmering green fur being deliciously ruffled by a cool summer zephyr. There in the same street, a lone pigeon can be seen, bathing in a puddle left over from a shower, long forgotten, from only minutes before. Sun showers or no, summer can be hot here.

I’m sitting in St Georg’s cathedral in Dinkelbühl that is 500 years old. On the front door there is a Cheshire cat-like knocker. Inside, there is a body to view, clad in knightly garb. Well, it’s no longer a body as such, just a collection of bones. He has no name, but we know clearly that we are not to tread on his resting place. The sound systems in these great churches astonish me. They’re necessary although back in the day, the architecture took care of acoustics. In this church they use Strässer from Stuttgart.

St Mang in Füssen is a funny church. It’s connected to Hoheschlosser, high castle. This is the first church I’ve ever visited of this kind. Edwin says the colours of the church are “Austrian”, which I think he means is Baroque and pastel. Lots of marbly oranges and curlicued edgings. It was quite unlike anything I’d ever seen before. There were not one but several crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and on the detailed sculptured pillars were fixed the ubiquitous (for German) Strässer sound system.

Köningsschlosser is this wee little chapelly-castle thing that sits in the foreground of the mythical seeming Neuschwanstein castle. If you look closely at the picture, you´ll see my model has his eyes shut. This sort of timing, well, you can’t teach that.

The view of Neuschwanstein castle as you drive along the Romantic Road is strange and mysterious. It is perched on the side of a mountain and looks completely isolated. Once you can tear your eyes away from the white vision, you see another castle – it seems gold in colour - in very close proximity. When you approach, you realise, these are not a couple of isolated ruins, this is tourism at its very best! There are four parking places, and while it could fool you into thinking it might be a sleepy little village, the main street and every walking track is teeming with visitors from all around the globe. The walk to one castle is 15 minutes, and the other is 40 minutes; both are uphill, but these challenges deter no one. Tickets to see the castles are only available on set tours. However, after each tour and spending €34, you feel a bit robbed, like, you haven’t quite been shown all of the castle. They seem much smaller on the inside than they appear on the outside. Hoheschwangau castle was where the (did I mention gay?) Bavarian King Ludwig II and his parents lived and where Ludwig waited for the 17 years while his project Neuschwanstein was constructed. (Sadly he only lived 127 days in the dream castle building before he died under mysterious circumstances – drowned with his psychiatrist in a lake someplace near München after being dethroned for being certified insane). Personally, both castles are a kind of optical illusion. The castles are a uniform pale colour on the outside, and are set against the dramatic backdrop of Germany mountainous-ness. When you get inside, it’s 19th century romantic kitsch to the max – with deeply coloured frescoes on every wall and each tiny room is crowded with imagery, statues, oversized furniture and too much colour. Thus everything looks tiny when you stand in a room with 20 other gawping tourists. (The medieval theme and the Wagnerian tributes to operatic personnages such as Tristan and Isolde don’t really help matters). I liked these castles, but at the same time I didn’t. I prefer ones like Versailles with their light and air, their chandeliers and mirrors. By contrast, these German palaces were dark and had an almost creepy air. It seemed all so over the top, a little ghastly even. And, seeing the same little kid being left behind by gawking American parents on not one, but both tours that day was testament to the sausage factory nature of these sights. If you’re in the area, have a look, but I would advise you to keep the view to the outside or even the outskirts of Schwangau. Keep a little fantasy for yourself.