germany: herreninsel and fraueninsel (his and hers islands)
finally! the moment you have all been waiting for has arrived. we get to meet king ludwig ii of bavaria. yes ludwig otto friedrich wilhelm himself. the mad king. the swan king. the fairy tale king. but first we have to travel to herreninsel before we learn more about him.
so our rapid transit friend, armin, transported us with his usual alacrity to the lovely lake called the chiemsee. even without ludwigs creations, this would be a spectacular spot. the snowcapped alps rise majestically from the end of the lake. the little town from which we would catch our ferry was unspeakably pretty. its like we had accidentally wandered into a fairy tale children's book.
one of the endearing traditions we found in germany and austria is the decoration of windows with flowers. i think it should be a worldwide law, its just so pretty. heres the crew ready for the walk into the palace.
so to get back to our main protagonist: king ludwig ii. he was 18 when he became king in 1864. the first king ludwig was his grandfather and was pretty eccentric in his own right, and apparently he had an influence on his grandson. to be honest, he really was not interested in ruling. he was an introvert, disliked large public functions, and avoided munich.
what he was really interested in was arts, music and architecture. and in this he poured all his time and energy, pretty much ignoring government affairs.
in 1879, he purchased the island that formerly hosted a monastery and set about building a palace. ludwig shared a name with the french king louis xiv (louis in german is ludwig), and after a visit to the french palace of versailles he decided to build herrenchiemsee. it is much smaller than versailles, but that is not saying much: it is still 70 rooms and the rooms that were furnished are furnished to a level of opulence that you cannot imagine until you see it.
sadly they don't allow pictures inside (why????) so the only way you can see the ridiculous level of opulence is to go there in person. in the museum housed in the ground floor of the palace, they have a bedroom of his as a kind of sample, but it doesn't even come close. imagine this picture below, but then every inch of space left over is covered in gold, or gold fabric, or a little carved statue so that everywhere you look has some ornament covering it, and you might be close.
only 20 of the 70 rooms were finished, but even so it cost something like 250,000,000$ to do that much. the gardens and sculptures outside are just as grand and large scale.
keep in mind that this was just one of ludwigs' fantastic palaces. we will come back to him and his castles in due course!
in the meantime, we take a quick visit via ferry to fraueninsel - the ladies island. this houses a monastery founded in 782.
you can see the 10th century church from this gatehouse, which is even older - 860AD. the island is small enough to walk around in half an hour or so.
good thing armin wasn't sitting in the middle of the bench when the tree came down! apart from the monastry, church and gatehouse, there are quite a good number of residences on the island, most with their own little dock to commute to the mainland.
we completed our tour of the chiemsee lake with our last ferry ride back to the mainland, happy and ready for our next german adventure - a town that has a history that makes fraueninsel's 10th century buildings look like babies in comparison - passau.
so our rapid transit friend, armin, transported us with his usual alacrity to the lovely lake called the chiemsee. even without ludwigs creations, this would be a spectacular spot. the snowcapped alps rise majestically from the end of the lake. the little town from which we would catch our ferry was unspeakably pretty. its like we had accidentally wandered into a fairy tale children's book.
what he was really interested in was arts, music and architecture. and in this he poured all his time and energy, pretty much ignoring government affairs.
in 1879, he purchased the island that formerly hosted a monastery and set about building a palace. ludwig shared a name with the french king louis xiv (louis in german is ludwig), and after a visit to the french palace of versailles he decided to build herrenchiemsee. it is much smaller than versailles, but that is not saying much: it is still 70 rooms and the rooms that were furnished are furnished to a level of opulence that you cannot imagine until you see it.
sadly they don't allow pictures inside (why????) so the only way you can see the ridiculous level of opulence is to go there in person. in the museum housed in the ground floor of the palace, they have a bedroom of his as a kind of sample, but it doesn't even come close. imagine this picture below, but then every inch of space left over is covered in gold, or gold fabric, or a little carved statue so that everywhere you look has some ornament covering it, and you might be close.
only 20 of the 70 rooms were finished, but even so it cost something like 250,000,000$ to do that much. the gardens and sculptures outside are just as grand and large scale.
you can see the 10th century church from this gatehouse, which is even older - 860AD. the island is small enough to walk around in half an hour or so.
good thing armin wasn't sitting in the middle of the bench when the tree came down! apart from the monastry, church and gatehouse, there are quite a good number of residences on the island, most with their own little dock to commute to the mainland.
