The beauty of Bavaria. I just discovered I hadn't posted my previous entry, so sorry for the delay!
The weather in Rothenburg ob der Tauber didn't improve much, but we were still able to appreciate the beauty of this remarkably preserved old city.
Next day, we took the shortcut down the A7 to Fussen - around 250km. Ah, the joy of moving left to overtake a truck only to discover an Audi in your rear view mirror that wasn't there a moment ago! While I was cruising along at a gentle 120kph, we were left in the wake of some doing in excess of (est) 200kph, in those sections of unrestricted speed on the autobahns. No time for just cruising along - concentration all the way (which I guess is how it should be!)
As we were approaching Fussen, approx. 65km away we came around a sweeping right hander and suddenly there in front of us were the Bavarian alps. Still capped with snow and looking stunning. As we got closer, they simply grew taller! Our guest house is on one of the roads leading to Neuschwanstein, and we were fortunate enough to be given a room with a view looking up to both castles: N as well as the castle where Ludwig 11 grew up - Hohenschwangau. Yeah - not bad :-) H is lit up at night which is very nice indeed. I had always thought N was white. Not quite! It is built from what looks like limestone which gives it that very light colour, but not the rendered white that I had supposed. I can understand however, how Walt Disney was inspired by it to create his own Magic Kingdom castle.
We walked up to the castles, which meant we didn't have to battle the traffic and buses. Interesting tours, and controlled with military precision. Ludwig was a sad and tragic figure - as much mystery and conjecture around his death as JFK.
Today we went on a drive that took us through a part of Austria, on our way to another of Ludwig's castles: Linderhof. This was much more homely (!), yet extremely extravagant but on a smaller scale.
From there we went to Oberammeragau, which is where the village performs the Passion Play every 10 years. When the bubonic plague was sweeping Europe, the village gathered together and prayed to be spared, and if they were spared, they committed to performing the play every 10 years from then on. They were spared, so they also kept their promise. I haven't checked the dates, but since London was hit by the plague in 1665, it would have been in that era. On the front of the Passion Theatre, there is an inscription dating 1673, which may have been the 1st performance (?) That's not a bad run, even by Andrew Lloyd Webber standards! A beautiful little village, that we would have loved to spend more time exploring.
Next - off to the Bodensee (Lake Constance), where hopefully the weather will improve?