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7/12/2007 Thursday, May 24 We gathered in the hotel lobby at 9:00, I think there were 14 of us, to take a day-trip to Prien, a little town on the Chiemsee lake. Our train left Munich around 9:45 and arrived around 11:00. Unfortunately, when we got there, we found out that the train that takes visitors from the main train station to the docks didn't start running until Saturday, so we had to walk the 2 miles there. I'd say it was about 12:15 by the time we reached the docks. When we originally paid for this day-trip, we thought it covered all our expenses. Not so. As far as we can tell, it only covered the mini-train we didn't get to take. The boat tickets (and later, the palace tickets) were left to us; that was about 14 euros we weren't expecting, so no one was particularly thrilled about that. We crossed the lake and disembarked on the island in the middle, where there's a palace at Herrenchiemsee that's modeled after Versailles, complete with its own Hall of Mirrors. I was particularly happy about that since the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles was closed when I visited a couple years ago. We stopped just off the dock and bought our tickets, then walked about another 2 miles to the palace. I think this was one of the most beautiful places I saw on the entire trip, but of course, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. The outside was just as beautiful, though, so I have lots of photos of that. I believe our tour of the palace was at 1:30, after which we stopped briefly for ice cream because we were all starving, having never had lunch. We walked back to the docks, crossed the lake again, and walked back into town where we stopped briefly at a church before sitting down to rest; we had about 45 minutes before our train back to Munich. But of course our guide made a wrong turn going back to the train station, so we missed it and had to wait another hour for the next one. We finally made it back to our hotel at 7:00, still having never eaten all day (except for that little bit of ice cream around 2:00). It was hot all day, too, and I got a little sunburned. We walked about 8 miles. Things could have gone better, but I still enjoyed it. It's just too pretty to get caught up in negative thoughts. Friday, May 25 At this point, I stopped actually writing a narrative and just made notes about where I'd been that day, so details will be a little sketchy. After breakfast, we loaded up one or two buses and drove to Neuschwanstein, a castle built by Ludwig II. Take a look at some pictures; it's absolutely amazing. But I could swear they told us he never lived there. It was built for entertaining and to impress people. It was designed by a set designer rather than an architect; this is what Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland is based on. Unfortunately, the interior was once again off-limits to photography. But I think I bought a book of postcards. Anyway, as you can see from pictures, it's up in the mountains. The bus took us to the little town at the base, and then you could either walk up the path, ride in a horse and carriage, or take a shuttle bus up. The walk is a bit steep but not too far. Near the castle is Marienbrücke (Mary's Bridge), made of steel and extending over a sizable gorge (someday I'll finish putting up my pictures on facebook, and you can see it better). The view is just breathtaking. The walk to the bridge was a little more difficult than that to the castle, but it was worth it. While we were up there, some foreign couple asked me to take their picture with the castle in the background. :) We had a little time afterwards to eat in town before getting back on the bus and driving to Wieskirche (Church in the Meadow), which basically is a small, rococo-style church in the middle of nowhere. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but the inside is gorgeous. You can see some really good pictures at their web site; they might take a minute to load, they're fairly high res. While I was there, I decided that since I seem to visit so many beautiful, famous churches, I'd start buying a rosary from each one. So Wieskirche is my first. We didn't get to spend much time there, maybe a half hour, 45 minutes. Then it was back on the bus and on to Oberammergau, a pretty standard little town where they happen to perform the Passion Plays. Apparently, they started in 1634 after making a vow to perform the plays every 10 years if God spared them from the plague. The plays are performed in years ending with zero. Whether they've kept it up continuously since 1634, I have no idea, but that would be pretty damn impressive. Labels: travel |