Garmisch-Partinkirchen – Castle Linderhof & Zugspitze

What a beautifully stunning place it is, the Castle is quite small, they actually call it a Villa.  Standing there on the front terrace looking out over the fountain to the pavilion on the top of the hill, was just amazing, it is decadent, but not too much, it is intimate enough that you could imagine living there…in style, but wait, as you go around the house every side has something to share with you.  The back garden is just amazing….King Ludwigs bedroom overlooks this fabulous waterfall, from a height in the actual bedroom it was amazing, we could  see  it better when we climbed up into the back garden.

Follow the trellised and grapevine covered walkway and it leads you up to the grotto, the underground cave that Ludwig was having tunneled out to make into an opera house. He was obsessed also with Wagner and his music at the time, Ludwig sponsored Wagner who also did private shows for him, the grotto was abandoned as it could not be made big enough.  Still pretty weirdly spectacular. The view below is coming back down to the castle from the grotto.  The avenue of water leads to the horse fountain at the back of the castle.

The Castle was built by King Ludwig 2 and was his country retreat, being only a couple of hours from Munich by horse and cart.  Ludwig was a reclusive King who hated being in Munich at the main Palace, he also despised court life, unfortunately for him, the goverment made him stay in Munich for 20 days of the month and the other 10 days he spent at Linderhof.  Poor Ludwig was only King for a couple of years until Bavaria was taken over by Prussia and absorbed into the German Empire.  He was then given an allowance by the State and with it, and his own royal revenues he built castles…..Linderhof being one of them.  Ludwig lived in the past and was fascinated at this time by King Louis of France and how he lived, he modeled the grounds of Linderhof on a mini basis exactly like Versailles, the inside the castle too has its mini Versailles moments.

We lined up for our tour in English and the guide said she was pleased with the small number (which was unusual) as the rooms in the villa were small and sometime the groups were to big.  The entrance hall was tiny, on the ground floor were all the servant quarters and kitchen, you climbed the grand staircase and these were Ludwigs private rooms.  No one from the court in Munich was invited to Linderhof and the small size of the rooms would have been perfect for one man.

The opulence took your breath away! Paintings on the walls and ceilings, well placed mirrors to reflect back the room and create the illusion of it being bigger. Porcelain collections, ornate furniture huge crystal chandeliers and rich curtaining.  It was overwhelming….This is the dining room where Ludwig ate his meals, he had a self setting table made.  It disappeared through the floor into the kitchen where the servants changed courses and relaid or emptied the table so Ludwig didn’t have to see any of the servants.

The bedroom was the biggest room in the house, modeled after the bedroom of Louis in Versailles.  Paintings above the doors even showed the French court in with Louis going through the ritual procedure of undressing for bed.  The Bohemian Crystal Chandelier is enormous and is said to weigh half a tonne.  The wee fence is actually a feature  of the bedroom, it has a hinged gate in the middle and Louis had one in Versailles as up to 150 people from the court were present at the ‘undressing of the King for bed’ ceremony, this gate held them back.  Ludwig never had people around him but as I said he was obsessed with Louis and lived in the past so he copied his style.

….Even down to having a mini Hall of Mirrors just like the french palace in Versailles.  Giant mirrors on all walls reflect the room back and all its glittering treasures.  Crazy place eh….the gardens make it look so normal and then you go inside….The tour was just long enough to keep it interesting.

What happened to Ludwig?  Well, he got more cantankerous and reclusive, he built a couple of more palaces…just cause…the banks were going to foreclose on him so the government had him declared insane, he was deposed and sent into exile…the day after he was exiled….he was found drowned in a lake along with the psychiatrist who pronounced him crazy.  Great story.

This is the Zugspitze, the golden orb marks the highest point in Germany, there was a hardy climber equipt with ice axe and crampons sitting up there checking his mobile phone, he was probably ‘checking in’ where he was on Facebook.  Normally you can see into 6 different countries and see hundreds of mountain peaks….not today.

The Operator was wrong, the weather didnt clear up, it progressively became worse….we had some soup for lunch in the bar and got in the que to come down the mountain, this time using the slower option of the cogwheel railway.  Most of it was through mountain tunnel and it took about 20 mins…Rosie had a wee nap in the dark.  As we broke through the clouds…it was back to being the fantastic day we had left behind on the ground.