I Want a Castle

It's okay to dream, right? We really enjoyed the palace at Linderhof, but it was so ornate and so gold, I really can't picture living there myself...maybe in the summer when the waterfalls are running?! But after seeing Neuschwanstein Castle (the one that supposedly inspired Walt Disney in the creation of Cinderella's castle), I told The Linguist I'd like a castle. It doesn't help that I've been reading Four Queens. It's the true story of four sisters, from a relatively obscure family, who all became queens during the 1200s. Margeruite married Louis IX, King of France. Eleanor married Henry III and became Queen of England. Sanchia married Richard (Henry's younger brother) who was later declared the King of Germany, making her Queen. And Beatrice married Louis' younger brother, and he was later declared King of Sicily.

I told The Linguist I don't want to be a queen...I just want the castle. I've read too much about the hardships and political power plays to want to rule a country, I just want a big house where we can have lots of company come and stay for months at a time and have rooms big enough to be concert halls. Of course, living in a castle would mean that somebody would have to clean the castle. And this makes me think of one of my favorite lines from The Cat in the Hat Comes Back right at the beginning where they're talking about the fact that the mother has decided the snow has to be shoveled. "Somebody, somebody had to you see...Then she picked out two somebodies -- Sally and me." (That's the best line of the whole book.) I have the feeling I'd fall into that somebody category when it actually came time to clean the castle.

Anyway, back to Neuschwanstein...Gothic castle, 6000 square meters (a mere 65,000 square feet!). A lot of it was never finished because Ludwig was declared insane (spending too much money on castles) and mysteriously died the very next day. (I repeat -- too much intrigue for me to be a queen!) There's a grotto (artificial cave) inside and a concert hall that he intended for private concerts since he was a recluse by this time. The kitchen was enormous, and since Ludwig was a night owl, the kitchen staff was on duty all night long. The head cook actually had an office near the kitchen with a daybed in it so he/she could catch some ZZZs whenever it was convenient.   There were hundreds of winding stairs on several different staircases and the whole thing perches on top of a mountain. We rode in a horse-drawn carriage most of the way up the mountain and then had to walk the last 5 minutes or so. Our first views of the castle were magical. I hear that it's lovely in the spring and summer, but in the winter, with snow and ice hanging from the trees, it was no less than enchanting.

The rest of the town is quaint and charming, as well. There's another castle there where Ludwig's mother lived that we saved for a different day. We also enjoyed the most expensive hot chocolate ever at the only indoor eatery we could find. The wait staff spoke very little English and so we used hand signals and Pianogurl. She does surprisingly well, considering how little German she's studied and claims to know. We tried out the German sausages, several different strudels, something that was kind of like flan with a delicious apricot sauce, and some sort of schnitzel with fries. (Fries seem to be everywhere in Europe!)

Deep Thinker was offended by the whole affair. He doesn't like German hot chocolate -- it's richer and less sweet than what we're used to, and he was horrified at the idea of everyone eating off of the same plate --too many germs. He finally ate some fries and we ordered him some water. The Net managed to accidentally spill his full hot chocolate all over the table and down the wall. We were able to show the waiter the spill on the table, which he cleaned up immediately, but since the spill was at the far end of a long table, and the waiter didn't come back for a while after he cleaned the table, we couldn't show him the stuff dripping down the wall or the puddle under the table without making everyone stand up and disturbing the people behind us. I'm sure he found it after we left...all things considered, it seems a minor thing now...although it was traumatic enough at that time. It's all part of the adventure of traveling with kids!

Ettal...vice (ha ha ha)

Today’s adventures began at the cheese factory in Ettal, Germany. Ettal is a little town just a few kilometers from Oberammergau. We were hoping for a tour of the factory, but unfortunately those are only available in German. Instead, we sat in the restaurant area and watched a video on the making of cheese, milk and butter. Of course after watching, we had to sample some of the wares! We tried three kinds of cheese, butter and two different cheesecakes. All were delicious. The cheeses were all pretty mild – a definite change from what we’ve tasted in Italy.

Yummy cheese, Grommit!

Our next stop was the Ettal Monastery. We didn’t see any of the Benedictine Monks that run things there, but we spent some time in their beautiful basilica. Particularly impressive were the acoustics inside. While standing directly under the dome, one tap of a foot echoed 8 different times! We were tempted to sing something to really try it out, but weren’t sure other passersby would appreciate our musical efforts…

Ettal Monastery nestled against the Alps

Check out those pipes!

Looking up from the sweet spot for sound

Rosa posing in the chapel

Gorgeous chandelier

The Net's view of the outside

From the monastery, we made our way to the sledding hill! Last night, we used a road that wasn’t particularly steep, but twisted around and really was terrific sledding –just right for us in our non-winter winter clothes and with our novice skill level. Today we opted to try the piece of mountain that we’d seen the German children using. The boys did pretty well, turfing it only a couple of times. The Net is a natural and came flying down the hill at breakneck speeds again and again. I’m not sure he could ever get enough. Deep Thinker had a couple of crashes, but figured out how to steer his sled and could get more mileage out of one run down the hill than we thought was possible. Rosa loved it for the first half hour, sliding on the front of the little wooden sled with The Linguist. Poor Songbird turfed and rolled the first two times and claims her career in sledding is now over. Pianogurl was ready to go after the first shovelful of snow she collected in her jeans, but rallied and stuck it out to the bitter end (in spite of her chilly end!), and I think she had a good time. I ended up going home early with the two younger girls, while the serious sledders stuck it out for another hour or so.

Climbing up the mountain...although it looks kind of flat from this perspective.
It wasn't flat!

Rosa and The Linguist

Pianogurl with her "snow" pants

A non-traumatic crash for Deep Thinker

Seriously -- they landed just like this!

Dinner was at a little sport’s bar that serves hamburgers and the best fries I’ve ever eaten! The owners are retired military from the Netherlands, so we sampled some of their authentic food, as well. There was a noodle/meat roll that was breaded and fried that I could’ve eaten more of. Why the excitement over hamburgers? Well, we can’t get them in Ferrara (unless it’s at McDonald’s – which we don’t really classify as hamburger). They do have Hard Rock Cafes in some of the bigger cities like Venice, Florence and Rome, but in small-town Ferrara, most of the restaurants serve Italian food and that’s that. We figured we’d better get one while we had the chance!

Walking back we enjoyed all of the window displays in the downtown area. Oberammergau is known for woodcarving and some of what we saw was pretty incredible. A whole nativity scene carved into half of a walnut was one of the things we had to stop and exclaim over. We were also really impressed by the wizard riding a broom that had been carved out of the end of a matchstick!

Walnut Nativity Scene

Witch on a matchstick!

Linderhof Palace and Sledding!

After finishing school today we headed to Linderhof Palace for a tour. King Ludwig II began building 3 different castles before his untimely death at the age of 40, but Linderhof was the only one he completed. He lived there for 8 years. The grounds of the palace are extensive, although everything except the palace was closed because of the snow. We’d love to return in warmer weather and view the fountains, waterfalls and other buildings on the grounds.

Rosa posing in front of Linderhof Palace

As it was, the snow really was beautiful. We tromped along several different paths and the kids enjoyed throwing snow into the creek. We also enjoyed watching the swans swimming in the lake. Apparently the swan was King Ludwig’s favorite animal. There were several small swan statues in the hall of mirrors room in the palace.

Enjoying the snow in the Bavarian Alps!

 We were all a little surprised at how small the palace was. Don’t get me wrong – it’s beautiful and incredibly ornate (baroque and rococo architecture they told us), but excluding the servants quarters, there were only 9 rooms, I believe. Most were even fairly moderate in size! Not nearly the huge, rambling spaces I usually associate with royalty.

Linderhof Palace from the front

The view from the front of the palace. In the summer, it's full of flowers and a huge fountain -- breathtaking, I'm sure.

I thought it was pretty cool to see a real throne, but our favorite feature of the palace was the dining room table. It’s all encased in glass now, but the guide told us that back in the day, it was lowered down to the kitchen that’s below, filled with food, and then raised back up for dining! I think that would be almost magical! We also really loved the silver room. It had all of the ornate woodworking that characterizes the rest of the castle, but instead of being covered with gold, it was all silver.

We followed up our visit with hot chocolate at one of the little shops there and purchased a jigsaw puzzle of the castle to start on when we finish our current project. It seems a little surreal to say that we drank hot chocolate in the Bavarian Alps today!

After our palace tour we met up with The Linguist and headed to a hill just above town for some sledding! The kids have declared it their new favorite sport. Rosa was a wild woman – spinning down the hill on her saucer again and again. Deep Thinker favors a blue sled that doesn’t go so fast and buried him in the snow on the side of the road more than once. The Linguist was determined to learn to steer the standard wooden sled that seems to be missing the traditional steering handle my sleds had growing up. He, too, ended up in the snow on the bank more than once! Pianogurl and I turfed it a couple of times, and I decided I only liked the saucer if my legs were out to slow my descent. Unfortunately, though, this resulted in pant legs full of snow. It's been awhile since I've enjoyed that sensation.

In the Bavarian Alps!

We are spending the week in the Bavarian Alps in a little village called Oberammergau. The Linguist is here for some special training and the kids and I are along to soak up the flavor! The view every direction we look is breathtaking. Our hotel is in the middle of town, very near a beautiful church that has bells. Deep Thinker was less than pleased with the bells his first morning, as he arrived at the breakfast table looking sleepy. “Why don’t they turn OFF the bells at night?” he wanted to know. I confess they are waking me fairly regularly, too.

The view from our balcony

Another view of Oberammergau

We had the opportunity to attend church in Munich on Sunday. The drive up was beautiful and the people in the English-speaking ward there were warm and welcoming. Rosa made friends with a German woman who sat next to us during Sacrament Meeting. They colored together and shared candy. The woman was quite taken with how friendly she was and thought it was funny that she had colored the entire back of her left hand royal blue during the first talk. I wasn't quite as pleased with the marker hand that was smearing all over everything...and Rosa didn't appreciate it when we told her we'd be calling her Avatar in the future.

Today we walked down the road to, of all things, a Reptile House! We spent several hours there looking at turtles, pythons, boa constrictors, tarantulas, iguanas and various other snakes and lizards. The kids were entranced. We learned that turtles really like red peppers and even watched one turn from his back to his front by pushing himself up against a tree.

We spent the afternoon lounging around the recreation area at the training base – air hockey for the older kids, a toy room for Claire and the grand finale was snow on the playground. We followed this up with a trip to restaurant called Zauberstub'n for dinner. It was delicious food! I had a schnitzel with a creamy mushroom sauce and homemade eggs noodles. I also sampled Songbird’s cordon bleu made with pork. Yum! And her salad had a dressing with dill in it. So good! For dessert, it was ice cream with warm raspberry sauce, apple strudel and a couple of other ice creams. It may have been our best restaurant experience EVER as the owner waits tables AND entertains with magic tricks in between his other duties. The kids loved it and just couldn’t get enough. We were also impressed that he speaks 9 languages (said it was a must as a magician…have to be able to speak to people in their native language to do the tricks).

After a 20 minute walk in the cold, the kids arrived anxious to eat 

Happy customers eating yummy food

Pianogurl and Rosa chowing down

The rest of the story...finally. Rome

So I apologize to all for such a massive delay in updating the blog.  Rome was so totally awesome!  Perhaps if we had a month we could really get to visit and digest the places we visited.  Trains in Europe hold to their schedules.  As we attempted to get on the train to go to Rome (all 10 of us with something like 14 pieces of luggage, stess smacked me in the face as I looked at a train car loaded to the gills with people.  Of course, we needed to navigate through them to get to our reserved seats which also were full of carpetbaggers.  After getting into our seats and settling all the luggage, we relaxed until we got to Rome.  Thankfully, our ride did show up (we were not 100% that he would) and whisked us off to our 5th floor penthouse apartment which was great (I'd highly recommend it to anyone...though you probably need to speak some Italian).  Our Roman itinerary included visits to: bus tour, the Coliseum, Palatine Hill, the Forum (almost...it was closing time as we were approaching and we were turned away), church in Rome, the Vatican museum (can you say  cattle herding?), Spanish steps, Trevi fountain, the Pantheon, San Peter's Basilica, the church of the bones, Villa Borgese, the Catacombs of St. Calixto, the Jewish Ghetto and the Mouth of Truth.  This is a quick list which could be expanded to include lots of great food spots and gelato.  I'll add the photos below because they speak better than words.
Before we go to the photos, a few anecdotal facts: 1. Ensure you stay together on the Metro (subway) or have a good back up plan...two of our group got separated from us (adults).  2. Ensure the kids are with an adult on metros and busses.  3. Go to the far ends of the metro to get seats...everyone comes down the stairs and waits in the middle to get on thus creating a situation where you're trying to stick 5,000 chickens into a coup with max capacity of 98 in under 38 seconds (really, we timed it.)  4. Expect to be treated like cattle in some locations if you visit during high tourist seasons.  5. You really can squish 5 adults and 5 kids into a bus that looks too full already...however, make note of fact #1.  6. New years in Rome is super cool...fireworks shows in 5 different locations visible from our penthouse...think a Macey's Day Parade with all the noise and hoopla at midnight.  7. Don't get off the bus too soon while en route to see the Catacombs because the road has about 2 feet of space on which to walk.  Songbird is now calling this the "Rome death march."  8. There is such a thing as too many pastries.  9.  Italian pizza with strips of salmon is not that good. 10. Beware! Random old men tend to walk around making odd noises...we saw one "bird whistler" and had one old gentlemen blow four raspberries in the faces of a number in our group.  Of the 300+ photos I took here are a few that show some things.