Europe - day 6

While in Germany, we had to have the German autobahn experience.  In general, on the autobahn (freeway) they don't have speed limits, although they do post recommended speeds.  I think what happens is you don't get speeding tickets, but if you're in an accident and were going over the posted speed, insurance will not cover you.  The recommended speed in many places is about 80 mph - it's pretty crazy.  They drive SO FAST.  You don't want to get in the way either.  They don't go around - they push through.  Actually I think it's illegal to pass on the right most of the time anyway.  Luckily they drive on the same side of the road as us (it was tricky in Scotland for Alex to drive a standard on the left side of the road - I don't know how he managed the gear shift with his left hand.)  Anyway, we had about a 5 hour drive from Cochem down to southern Germany, so Alex had a chance to cruise along the autobahn.  He got up to about 120 mph in a few places.  Most of the time we were going the recommended speed, although in a few open areas, Alex tested out how fast he could go.  We made sure there wasn't much traffic around while flying down the road at 120mph.  It wouldn't go much faster and we were on a downhill slope when he got to 195km.  Really crazy and dangerous!  We were driving in this Golf VW car (without hubcaps) that had 6 gears.  You'll see he almost got to 200km.  

Our itinerary for the day was to tour a couple of castles in southern Germany, near Fussen in Bavaria.  We mostly wanted to see the Neuschwanstein Castle, built by King Ludwig II (also known as Mad King Ludwig).  We also saw Hohenschwangau, which was Ludwig's boyhood home.  Both were impressive, but Neuschwanstein was just incredible.  It was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle and other Walt Disney castles.  We couldn't take pictures inside the castles, but the intricate details of the painting and architecture were just amazing.  The N castle was built in honor of and inspired by the composer Richard Wagner, so many of the paintings were characters from Wagner's operas.  The story of the castle and Mad King Ludwig is an interesting one.  (I had to go back and look up some of the details.)

Ludwig II became king of Bavaria at the age of 18.  He later began construction of the N castle, but it was never fully completed inside (I think he actually only lived there for about 6 months). Ludwig had gone heavily into debt with the construction of castle, and instead of halting work on it, he pressed on trying to force loans from all of Europe's royalty.  When threatening to dismiss his entire cabinet, they decided to act first and try to de-throne Ludwig by means of declaring him unfit to rule.  They succeeded and he was declared mentally insane (without a medical exam) and he was to be replaced on the throne.  Shortly after that declaration, Ludwig was found dead (at the age of 40).  He and the physician who had proclaimed him insane were found floating in a lake near Munich, a mysterious death (likely murder/suicide, but there were controversial reports).  

Anyway, whether he was actually insane or not is unknown, but his eccentric personality contributed to this incredible design of the N castle.  It's interesting - he meant the castle to be a private refuge, but only about 7 weeks after his death, it was opened to the public.  And now millions of people have been through there - I think more than one million visitors every year!  

Overlooking the N castle is a bridge, called Marienbrucke, which Ludwig II's father built as a present for his wife Marie (hence Mary's Bridge).  Ludwig later replaced the wooden bridge with steel. We loved the view of the N castle from the bridge.  (I have a picture of the H castle in this collage too - the small yellow blob, but you couldn't actually see it from the bridge.)