This the little town of Oberammergau. It has the most beautiful wood carving shops - with beautiful decorations for Christmas. It looks exactly how you'd picture a tiny Bavarian town to look!
This is a beautiful lake nestled in a National Forest outside of Garmisch - it looked exactly like a Tommy Hilfiger ad for Christmas! The Chalet restaurant was beautiful!
We also visited 3 castles built by King Ludwig II. He was crazy extravagant (to the point of being removed for spending money) - but the architecture is stunning. We first visited Linderhof Castle - it is small, but an engineering wonder. The dining table inside lifts down to the kitchen to be set from below and then brought up with food and settings. Similarly, all of the rooms are heated from below - central heating before it really existed!
We then visited Hohenschuwangau Castle - which is where Ludwig II grew up and spent the majority of his reign. A very impressive castle set on a beautiful hill overlooking Bavaria - it has a strong theme of Swans throughout it for the Swan Knight:
Our final stop was Neuschwanstein Castle - which was by far the most elaborate castle I have been to - drip caves inside, a planned pool, and music hall. The opulence is really indescribable! It is also beautiful and was the inspiration for the Magic Kingdom. While it was magical to visit the castles in heavy snow, it was also disappointing not to get the photos we would have liked...for much of the day it was too cloudy to get any real photos.
We loved Bavaria and puffy coats. We also were sad that we couldn't use this photo for our Christmas Card (darn APO deadlines for holiday mail!!!)
No comments:
Post a Comment