An assortment of German towns
Starting from where we left off;
Herrenchiemsee is the largest of many palaces built by the over ambitious, and probably insane King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Ever heard of the magical fairy-tale castle Neuschwanstein with its interior paintings dedicated to Wagner? This is the same bloke.
Construction started in 1878 on an island of Herreninsel, located in the middle of Bavaria's largest lake, Chiemsee. With designs for 70 elaborate rooms, this impressive new palace was to be built across the island from the much older monastery, and included mythical statues and fountains in its vast gardens.
Ludwig was obsessed with France and in particular Louis XIV. This is highly apparent in the design, as he built Herrenchiemsee in the style of the Palace of Versailles, even going as far as to make his bedroom a replica of Louis' (the 'Sun King' i.e. all gold everything) own private chamber. This huge building has largely remained out of the international spotlight, primarily because 50 of the rooms remained unfinished after work stopped in 1886 after Ludwig's death.
However it is unlikely he would have had enough funds to complete the Palace, with so much expensive detail going into aspects of Herrenchiemsee, that if completely would actually exceeded Versailles. The advantage of new technologies at the time of construction; a mechanical dining table, a bath as big as a swimming pool, and an extra few feet in the hall of mirrors, all pointed to this German version of French luxury actually being the better than the real thing.
I found the whole place very interesting, and would tell you more, but that is enough because I wasn't actually aloud to take photographs inside, and therefore I don't have any photographs to show you... Sorry to get your hopes up.
Instead I have these from the boat journey there, and some more photos from other parts of Germany which I thought I would include in this post, as they aren't substantial enough on their own.
^ Here's me looking very strange outside the palace. Below is an image of the hall (not my photograph), which runs the length of the building, the middle set of windows you can see behind me. There are an outrageous amount of chandlers and even more candlesticks in the Palace, and apparently for the week that Ludwig was actually in residence he demanded that ever candle be lit, although there were no guests, so he could wonder the rooms and hallways alone at night.
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Then I visited Andrea, a friend based in Krefeld, in the west of Germany. She showed me around Wuppertal where she took me on the train with the tracks on the top called the Schwebebahn, the only urban train system like it in the world... Very alarming when you step on an you can feel it swinging more like a gondola than a train. I felt a bit like I was in Bladerunner.
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We also briefly dropped by Cologne and saw the Cathedral with its incredible floors. The entire building was like something from a beautiful dream.
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After a few lovely days with Andrea I was back a little more south to see Iris, a family friend. They took me to the cute village of Heidelberg, popular with tourists for its beauty, and with students for its university, one of Germany's finest.
Und wir besuchten das schloss natürlich.
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And finally here's a bit of Frankfurt too, on top of the 'Main Tower'
Thank you all so much for reading my posts and being part of my European adventures. The future of this blog is uncertain, but I plan to show you some London life.
I hope you stick around to read the new content!
All my love, G xx
