Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein Castles in Schwangau Germany part 1

Like I said in a previous post I downloaded the "Top 100" Germany app.  Created by using the survey results from the Germany National Tourist Board.  My goal in the 3 years we are stationed here is to try to hit them all.  So far this will make the 10th site of the 100 so we are doing pretty good in the three months we have been here.

The trip to Schwangau was only 3 hours.  A VERY foggy trip, we where worried that we wouldn't be able to get good pics of the castles.  They are located at the base of the Alps on the German/Austria border.  With our mild winter this year (2nd warmest winter in 100 years) the ski slopes that we passed where all closed.  But to our surprise the fog cleared up as soon as we arrived into town.  

We payed for parking and bought our combo tickets to the 2 castles.  The only way to see the two castles is by tour only. 

Our first tour was Hohenschwangau Castle,  the childhood residence of King Ludwig II, the home of King Maximilian II of Bavaria.  The site has had a fortress here since the 12th century but fell into ruins by the 1800's.  Maximilian discovered the site in 1829 and in 1833 he began reconstruction of the castle.  The castle served as their summer and hunting residence.  King Maximilian died in 1864 and Ludwig II was crowned successor.  In 1869 he decided to build his own castle within site of Hohenschwangau.  The castle was opened as a museum in 1913 after Ludwig's uncle died in 1912.

Here is a picture from the parking lot. Hohenschwangau Castle.

The walk up to the castle.

Picture from the Castle Gardens.

A view of the town below.

You can see King Ludwigs Neuschwanstein Castle from his parents castle.

View from the castle gardens.

Although pictures are not allowed inside the castle, a little goggling and I was able to get these pics. The castle was never damaged during WWII so all the pictures and furniture are original.  This is queen Marie's living room.

King Maximilian's Bedroom there are stars on the ceiling that are actually opaque glass and candles could be lit in a area above the bedroom so the king would see the stars twinkle at night.  Also hidden in the branches of the tree in the ceiling there was a moon made the same way.  The kings quarters also had a private bathroom with running water and a flushing toilet.  There is a hidden door inside the room that leads to a spiral staircase that goes down to the queens bedroom.

The Kings music room, a great German composer, Richard Wagner would come and stay at the castle.  the piano here is the actual one that he would play on.

This is the guest room that Richard Wagner would stay in on his visits.

A gift to the king, this box has gold plated solid silver figurines and is encrusted with emeralds and rubys.

The castle kitchen had all the modern amenities of the time, with a pantry and running water.

The view of the Alps from the kings quarters.

Leaving the castle grounds.

Overall touring the castle was a real treat.  

A pic from Neuschwanstein castle.

The tour was very interesting, it was our first tour of a castle interior.  More than 300,000 visitors come here every year.  In this pic you can see why Maximilian fell in love with this area.  January seemed to be great there wasn't huge crowds of people.  I am going to split this visit up into two parts.

Heidelberg Germany

We drove to Heidelberg to check out the old castle ruins, the "100 things to see in Germany" app I have rates it as #8.  It was about 2 1/2 hours west of us, but with German winters it gets dark at 4:30 pm we didn't have a lot of daylight to explore all of the city.

Artist drawing of what the castle grounds 

looked like in the 1650's before any destruction.

Kim took some great panoramic shots.  

There is a huge dry moat around the entire castle grounds.

The castle has been sitting un-inhabited since 1720 or for 294 years!!!  The first mention of the church was 1214!! Construction was finished in 1619 due to the thirty years war and this was the first time that weapons had ever been used against the castle.  The castle was overtaken 3 times during the thirty years war, in 1649 after it was taken back, King Ludwig moved back into the castle ruins. The French had placed explosives around the castle and blew up many sections of the castle during the nine years war of the late 1600's.  In 1720 the ruler at the time decided to forgo the repairs and moved the castle court members to nearby Mannheim castle, in 1764 the head of Bavaria was going to move the court back to the castle but lightning struck the castle twice in a row setting it on fire.  He took that as a sign from heaven and changed his mind.  In 1800 the local counsel decided to conserve the castle ruins, up until then the  townspeople was using the castle stones to build buildings in the town.

 I would loved to have seen this in its prime, this castle is HUGE!!

Castle grounds entry way.  

 The retractable metal gate at the entrance looks like teeth.

Panoramic view of the castle grounds.

What you see when you walk through the castle gate.

 The Friedrichbau,  Elector Frederick IV commissioned to have this building, his residence, revamped from 1601-1607.  The entire building was restored in the latter half of the 1800's , the ground floor is the castle chapel and the paid castle tour will take you through all the restored rooms.  The building to the left is the Fassbau it is the Kings hall, in the basement is the wine cellar.  A huge barrel was built in 1591 to hold all the wine that the wineries would pay their taxes with.

Jonah and I thought that this was a huge wine barrel, but.............................. 

Then we saw this one.......it holds almost 53,000 Gallons!!!!! The original 1591 barrel was destroyed during the thirty years war, this one replaced it in 1664.  There is a dance floor on top of it that the court jester would perform on.  Perkeo the court jester was in charge of keeping watch on the wine, legend has it he was a heavy drinker, he would always be drinking wine.  The legend says that one day he picked up and drank from the wrong glass, that was full of water, not wine and he dropped dead. Pretty funny.

 The heads sticking out are kind of freaky.  
They are all heads and statues of rulers of the area.  Frederick is the one holding the sword.

Kim keeps making the wizard of oz reference "puuuut em up......puuuuuttt um up" 

The Ottheinrichsbau was built in the 1550's. The front is adorned with statues of ancient heroes and Roman emperors.  The roof was damaged during the war with the french but the lightening strike of 1764 burned out the entire building.  There is an Apothecary museum in the basement.  The first floor has been restored to its 1500's glory and can be viewed with a payed tour.....we missed the last tour by 15 minutes.

This tower was called the "herb tower" although it housed the castles supply of gun powder when the French blew up the tower during the war they got lucky and placed a placed an explosive on this wall and the powder inside helped blow it in two.  Look how thick the walls are!

This is like a six or seven story column on the outside of the castle wall, I think that the blocks sticking out use to hold the wooden floors, but don't know for sure.  You can see the castle hallways that come to every floor, it looked really cool.

Jonah took a good pic of us out on the terrace overlooking the city, beautiful views.

A view of the Karl Theodore bridge, built in 1786 by its namesake.  A portion was blown up during WWII in 1945 but the townspeople rebuilt it in 1946.

Elisabeth's Gate was said to have been built in a single night in 1615 from Prince Elector Friedrich V as a birthday present for his English princess, Elisabeth Stuart. 

"The Father Rhine" the only remaining water feature left on the castle grounds. It is off and water drained for the winter but it still works after all this time. Built 1616-1619 by Solomon de caus.  Below are some of his other water fountains that did not survive the wars.

He created many wonders around the castle gardens.  He used techniques that used air, solar and water power to make his creations come to life. Many people who saw them thought it was magic.

 Entry ways like this where all over the garden area and Solomon had his creations throughout to entertain the high court and their visitors.

This is a view into the entry way. 

You can see the water that Solomon used to fill the ponds is still running today.

Jonah and I climbed to the top of the church and were able 

to take a couple of great night pictures of the castle.

The castle looks awesome at night.

This is the Hotel Ritter.  Built by a cloth dealer in 1592, but has been a hotel since 1705!!

Across from the hotel Ritter is the Church of the Holy Spirit. I got this picture off the web so you could see the round tower column on the left side of the bell house.  Jonah and I walked the 208 stairs to get to the platform there so we could take a picture of the castle at night.

Seemed like we went up for ever! 

Jonah was pretty nervous about this pic, it was pitch black we couldnt see very far in front of ourselves.  We walked around the entire platform.

These statues where on the second floor of the church.......quite odd.

It isnt the most lavish church we have visited thus far, but it is still beautiful in its own right.  It is the most famous church in Heidelberg, the church was built in 1398 and completed in 1544.  From 1706-1720 there was a partition installed so it could be used by BOTH Catholics and Protestants simultaneously!  

This pipe organ is different than all the others we have seen.

The main alter is still decorated for Christmas.

We had a great time in our short visit to Heidelberg and will be heading back for some more exploring.  Hope you enjoyed the pics.  So many places to visit, So many things to see.