February 2005
Of Snow and Castles
So, a month out of Surgery and it's time to get back to traveling and seeing sights. For my first long weekend of 2005, I had great plans. Then it snowed. I planned to make the trip down to the Bavarian/Austrian border town of Hohenschwangau. When I got up Saturday morning, we had several inches of snow on the ground, and more falling. Road conditions were bad, so an early departure was out of the question.
Instead of making the 3 hour trip to Füssen that morning, I made more local trips on Saturday — wandering in the snowy woods and fields outside Oftersheim for a while, and then driving up to the Heidelberg Castle to enjoy the scenery from there. It was a nice restful, yet scenic day with heavy snow fall and beautiful backdrop.
Sunday, the roads were clear, and I got a reasonably good start. Almost as soon as I made the turn towards Karlsruhe, snow began to fall. Cars traveling at Autobahn Speeds were caught unaware and were spinning out and off the road. After about half an hour at a 30kph tempo in an unrestricted speed zone, the knot of traffic cleared the near white-out conditions. The sky was actually partially clear and sunny an hour and a half later as I approached the Alps south of Ulm.
I passed through Füssen, and into the town of Hohenschwangau when I first caught a glimpse of my target, perched atop a pine-covered mountain outcrop: the Königsschloss Neuschwanstein. Schloss Neuschwanstein was built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, often known as “Mad King Ludwig.” Inspired by the operatic works of Richard Wagner and the themes of the old Teutonic Knights, Ludwig commissioned the building of the dream castle in 1868. It was not quite complete upon his death in 1886. It is such a fairy-tale castle that it was the basis of Walt Disney's castle in Snow White.
I walked up the road from the parking lot, and was awe-struck by the view of Neuschwanstein covered in snow. The red stone of the Gate house made a perfect contrast to the grey stonework of the main castle, the green of the pine trees, and the white of the snow covering. It was here that I took perhaps my best picture ever, but with a subject like this, it is hard to go wrong.
About half-way down, I found an open path up to the Marienbrücke scenic overlook — bridging the gorge upstream. It was the ideal of a winter wonderland — peaceful and quiet, snow covered pine trees, the only movement being the occasional branch dropping its accumulated snow, with large heavy flakes of snow continuing to fall.
Not sure where I'm going next… stay tuned!
Charles.