Neuschwanstein Castle

We visited the Neuschwanstein castle yesterday.

it was built by king Ludwig and is located in serene settings,with a lake nearby,the mountains behind and the greens all around.the king was a patron of the german composer Wagner and the interior of the castle has many references to his compositons on the walls.built in the Roman style mostly,but some rooms also have the Gothic and Byzantine styles incorporated,making it one of the most beautiful castles in the world.Ironically however the king died under mysterious circumstances near the lake before the castle could be finished so that it was never properly lived in by a king as Ludwig died unmarried and left no heirs.

So much for the history.

🙂

Now we also saw a dog being attacked by a swan.Who could of thought of a creature as gentle looking as a swan attacking a dog.What happened was a family was playing with its dog by making it retrieve a floating log of wood from the lake.The poor dog was about on its fourth expedition into the lake when the swan decided it didn’t want competiton in its own territory by somebody from the land.And the attackthat took the dog by surprise saw the swan trying to drown the dog by flapping its wings on the dog who,log in mouth and four paws trying their best to stay afloat was helpless to say the least.we were in the water and had to throw water at the jealous swan to shoo it away and save a floundering dog who was no match for the huge swan that could easily give a grown up human being a hard time.Having taught the dog a valuable lesson,the swan retreated to the deep,with its beak held high.It made me wonder how an elegant looking creature like the swan,something that i used to adore at the Sanjay Park lake in New Delhi as a kid could suddenly become a horrible predator with long neck and black feet,blood shot eyes and huge,powerful,killer wings.

Anyways.We then went upto the castle which was a guided tour of 30 minutes by a talking machine…no wait,that was a woman who spoke english like an android.We then saw a free performance of cards by a young guide with a bunch of american girls which left us all wide-eyed,open mouthed(i love that look,he said) and visibly surprised.no trick,just a lot of practice and experience with cards that could impress us lesser mortals easily.i could understand that a slick talker like that could make a lot of money in his business.

Hmmm…Then we went to Marien-bruck,a small,100-plus year old,cantilever bridge precariously perched between two huge hills and offering a great view of the castle and the waterfall below.having clicked innumerous pics on top of the bridge,we hungry for some adventure went up to the top of the hill on a track that was not really a track but more a goat-trail.a german couple was coming down the peak,and we were going up.the lady was in the front and the man was following a few metres behind.we were carefully climbing when i heard the woman slip and the gravel crunch from below her feet and i saw her falling towards the edge.i thought she would stop,but she dragged down on her back a few meters further and with nothing to hold on to,would have gone slithering down further over the edge and down the 300 feet drop to the rocks below but luckily her foot hit a rock a nd miraculously,she stopped,by which time the man had reached her and helped her out with a little help from us.certainly a near death experience for her and something she wouldn’t forget in her lifetime.

the bus

we headed back to the station and the bus was packed with americans and chineese tourists,and it reminded me of a blue-line bus.:) the train trip back home had us seated next to some american students who were on their way to Prague.we caught the ICE back to Nurnberg and then the connecing train to Erlangen.we helped a chineese family who like us had missed their train and were trying to buy a ticket which was really expensive,when all they really had to do was ask the travel helpdesk for an upgrade.they turned out to be employees from Adidas and we had a good discussion on their policies and products.also we got an invitation to visit the adidas outlet where they could give us a discount of about 44%.Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai still works Mr. Nehru:P

we reached home at around 2:20 am and went to sleep,exhausted and happy.