Schloss Neuschwanstein

Apart from beer and bratwurst, when a person thinks of Germany they think of castles. The most famous Bavarian castle that graces the covers of numerous guidebooks, brochures and posters is the fairytale castle Neuschwanstein. This spectacular creation of "mad" King Ludwig II is everything a fairytale castle should be and has even served as the model for the Cinderella castle in Disneyland.

During our first tour in Germany I visited the Royal Castles many times, but I thought the kids would enjoy seeing the real Cinderella castle for themselves.




Neuschwanstein is purely fantasy. King Ludwig II built other castles such as Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee, that were wildly extravagant but still had some basis in reality. Ludwig was obsessed with Richard Wagner and his operas and was completely withdrawn from the industrial world of the 19th century, and so the lonely King was wrapped in a dreamworld and Neuschwanstein is the manifestation of those dreams.




We enjoyed some spectacular scenery from the rocky crag where the castle is built. You can see the tan/yellow castle across the way. This is Hohenschwangau castle where King Ludwig was born and raised. I will write about that later. The views are just simply amazing!!














Schloss Neuschwanstein was Ludwig's first creation started in 1869, but it remained unfinished at the time of his death 17 years later. He lived there for a total of 170 days, and it was from there that he was taken into custody after being declared insane. The young king's life ended tragically in the waters of Lake Starnberg the very next day. We were not allowed to take any pictures inside the castle, but his fantasy rooms are amazing. His bedroom is all wood carved and took 12 wood carvers 4 years to complete. There is even a fake cave (looks completely real) that he built through a small hallway. Here are some closer pictures of the facade of the castle.





The Marienbruecke was built over a gorge and offers some purely splendid views of the castle. These pictures were taken from the castle looking out to the bridge.







We walked over to the Marienbruecke and enjoyed the scene. Not a good place to go if you are afraid of heights and shaking bridges, but it is so worth it! This is what you get to see when you stand on the bridge.

May all of your dreams come true. Stay tuned for more of our adventure to the Alps.

Daisy Scouts

Daisy Scouts is done for this year and to celebrate all of the girls accomplishments the leaders organized an end-of-year ceremony and celebration! They did an awesome job! The girls earned 7 out of 11 petals this year.

This is the cute program one of the leaders made for the event.

They made this big daisy on the floor that was cute.

Isn't this the cutest? One of the leaders made these daisy cupcakes and decorated a cake with them. What a creative idea!

All of the girls got to wear (and keep) these daisy headbands.

These are our fearless leaders - Jessie and Amanda. They really did a wonderful job with the girls! Sadly, they are both PCSing so next year we'll have new leaders. I was going to volunteer but a couple of other ladies beat me to the punch, so I will just help out when I can.

All of the beautiful Daisy Scouts from Troop 109!

Here are some scenes from the ceremony. The girls all received certificates, sang some songs and did one last "hand-squeeze" circle.

After the ceremony we all enjoyed some pizza and cake.

Great job Katriana!! Be proud to be a Daisy!!!

We look forward to being in Daisy Scouts again next year!!

Raps

Every spring here in Germany the countryside is beautifully adorned with raps (rapeseed) fields. It is just a bright, bright yellow and a welcome sight after the grayness of winter. Rapeseed is grown for the production of animal feed, canola oil for human consumption, and biodiesel. In Europe, rapeseed is primarily cultivated for animal feed. My pictures do not do justice for the brightness of these fields, but you can get the idea on how pretty the countryside is!

Josef's Turn

Katriana has been doing very well on her 2-wheeled bike. She can now go fast and do turns like she's been doing it forever. This past Sunday we were outside and I was going to fix the training wheels on Josef's bike, but he asked if he could try riding his bike without the training wheels. He had been riding a balance bike at school and could balance himself well so he thought he was ready to try his bike without training wheels. This is what happened......

He did it!! Look, no training wheels!

He is so proud of himself and I am VERY proud too!

Maypole

On Saturday, May 1st our village had the maypole celebration! This was my first time watching one and it was such fun. Promptly at 1:00 the celebration began with marching the maypole down the street to the village square. It started right outside our house and we followed it to the square.

A small band played music and led the tractors with the maypole down the street.

The maypole is a very tall birch tree with a wreath around the trunk and ribbons adorning the branches.

Once they got to the village square the work of raising it began. Several men of the village used pairs of long poles connected with a rope to raise it up. There was a man in charge giving the others directions on where to place the poles and when to push them to raise up the pole. It was really neat to see.

Starting to go up....

It's getting higher...

and higher....

it's getting close now....

One more push and it will be there....

Success! The maypole is raised!! There was much cheering from the crowd.

Of course, no celebration in Germany is complete without bratwurst, beer and sweets! Of course we had to join in!! Once the maypole was secured the bachelors and bachelorettes did a few dances in front of it.

After the dancing we decided to go to our neighboring city of Poppenhausen to see their maypole and join in their festivities. Some of my neighbors are in the band and were playing for the party so I wanted to go and show my support. Since it was kind of a rainy day, Poppenhausen had their party in the fire house instead of outside. There was no dancing, but there was plenty of food and good music!

Here is my neighbor, Lara, playing her french horn.

Katriana eating brats with some of the neighbor girls.

It was fun hanging out with friends and enjoying the day.

Bratwurst anyone?

I'm really glad we got to join in the fun maypole celebrations! It was so neat to see this German tradition firsthand. Happy May Day!!