We enter the castle and just stare in wonder at the beauty that unfolds. What a magnificent collection of fine arts and treasures for King Ludwig to have lived amongst. It’s no wonder that he had the government of the time concerned about his ever rising debt, as he continued to build one castle after another.

The interior of Neuschwanstein is beautifully ornate and the 2 story Byzantine style throne room has a floor of individually chiseled tiles and a series of pillars in imitation porphyry and lapis lazuli. The throne however, was never built.

The Kings bedroom is furnished in Gothic style and it reportedly took 14 woodcarvers four years to complete the elaborate oak carvings for the room. The elaborately carved bed resembles a gothic church with its towers and tracery windows.

On the walls are paintings showing scenes from the epic by the medieval German poet Gottfried von Straßburg, Tristan and Isolde. The bedroom has a hidden locked door which leads to a private toilet.There is just so much to see and unfortunately photography is not permitted inside and the guides are very strict about this.

A truly memorable experience that we recommend you see. I guess we can be thankful for the excesses of past kings and queens or none of these magnificent structures would be around to delight us today, even though the populace suffered at the time to pay for them.

So after being sated with the extravagances of a bygone era we set off down the hill back to the ticketing area to catch the coach back to Munich.

On our way to Linderhorf Castle we went to visit Oberammergau. Just look at the beautiful paintings on the building. Much of Oberammergau is painted in murals like this.

The coach trip took us through beautiful scenery. I was fascinated by the houses that have stables attached so that in the winter the cattle can be housed inside out of the snow.

Oberammergau is where the Passion Play has been performed every 10 years since 1634. During the 30 year war the population suffered months of death from the plague.

The Oberammergaus swore an oath to god that they would perform the “Play of Suffering, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ” every ten years, if they were spared from further deaths of the plague.

The first play was performed at Pentecost in 1634, on a stage constructed in the cemetery, above the graves of plague victims. The residents of Oberammergau perfom the play repeatedly over the course of five months in the first year of each new decade.

There are generally in excess of 2,000 performers, musicians, and stage technicians. The last play was performed in 2000 and tickets will be on sale for the play to be performed in 2010.

We are seriously considering returning to Europe so that we can go and see the Passion play among a lot of other things we want to see.

If you will be taking a long haul flight then don’t request a window seat particularly if you are traveling alone. Request the aisle seat instead.

The only time you will see anything in the window seat is at take off and landing and on a long flight you will really want the aisle seat as you won’t need to climb over your fellow passengers every time you need to take a trip to the bathroom.

It will also mean that you can just get out of your seat at any time to exercise your legs and get the blood flowing again.

Seats over an exit are also an excellent idea if you want extra leg room. As long as you are prepared to do whatever is necessary if there is a problem, then by all means request one of these seats.  Great for tall people who need to stretch out their legs so that they don’t get cramps.