Oktober 9 - Lindau

(Doing this update on the 11th as we didn't have time to do it in Lindau)

After a charming time in Oberammergau, one of the cutest, quaintest towns you have ever seen (Dad VH you would have looooved to go hiking around there as it was sooo neat) we took off to the west through the Alps. Came across a church called the Weißkirche, a glorious roccoco monster in the middle of nowhere. Beautiful! Then down toward Füssen to see the Neuenschwanstein Castle (the one you see in all the travel brochures and the model for which the Disney castles were built) and its sister castle Hohenschwangau. How beautiful were they! Lots of hiking, however, including a hike high above the castle and onto a metal bridge erected in the 1800s just so the so-called mad king Ludwig II could watch his dream castle being built. I found it really interesting how obsessed he was with opera writer Wagner...the new castle was going to have the whole 3rd floor dedicated to him with his own living quarters but it wasn't finished. Ludwig II was deemed mad (he spent 3 million marks at that time to build the castle) so Ludwig left with his own physician to defend his sanity in München. Never made it though and he and his physician were found drowned in the Starnsee just outside München.

Amazing history! After that we went south into Füssen and over to Lindau, an island in the middle of the Bodensee that was a 9th century nunnery and then became a tightly packed maze of houses and streets by the 1800s. We stayed actually in an apartment house that rents its rooms out. It was probably built in the 1500s and we had a overlook of a tiny square with a fountain and all. Another great dinner of Weinerschnitzel, beer, and long beautiful walks.

In the background you can see the Swiss Alps which are huge and imposing...Switzerland is just on the other side of the lake...and the people in Lindau spoke mostly Sweizdeutsch...a mix of french, german, and something else...so suddenly pantomiming became really important especially when securing our room! She didn't speak a lick of english. Hehe.