Our first stop was Linderhof, which is very close to Oberammergau. When we got there, it was pouring rain. We got the kids out of the car and ran to a little shop where our first order of business was to buy an umbrella! We bought a huge umbrella, big enough to fit us all under, and headed on our way up to see the castle.
The rain let up for a few minutes before we went in for our tour, so Tim got a picture or two. Here are the gardens across from the castle entrance.
Inside the entrance of the castle - this is the ceiling. Tim took this picture before the tour guide came in and told us no pictures - oops! This is a good example of what it looked like throughout the castle though, gold everywhere.
The tour was pretty cool, it moved fast and the guide told interesting stories. The kids were really good, considering it could have been pretty boring for a two and four year old. There were lots of interesting things to look at in each room so Tim and I took turns whispering things to the kids - "Can you find the animals? Which is your favorite vase? What are they doing in that painting?" It definitely helped and they stayed interested (and therefore quiet!) right up to the end.
Cameron's favorite story from the tour was one that the guide told about the king. Since he was the king, it was a privilege for others to help him get dressed every day. There were two paintings, one showing someone helping the king put on his pants and another one showing someone helping the king put on his shoes. Cam thought this was HILARIOUS, that a grown-up wouldn't get dressed on their own. He practically hooted at the end of the story, and said "Even Leah can get dressed by herself and she is only two!"
At the end of the tour, you finish on the staircase that you started on. There is a secret door at the back of the staircase (used to be a servant's entrance) that takes you to the gift shop and the way out of the castle. The tour guide let Cameron use the key to open the secret door, which he thought was pretty awesome.
The gardens that you walk out to from the exit of the castle
This is the king's insignia - the part in the middle is two entwined L's, which are his initials. This was all over the place in the castle; Cameron had fun looking for it.
Mama and kiddos with one of many fountains
Another part of the garden. The kids really liked that statue/fountain.
Daddy, Cam and Leah with the gold statue. The kids liked that it was shooting water straight up in the air.
Looking up into the hills behind the castle - see that green gazebo? We'll be there in a few pictures.
We made Cameron and Leah walk through most of the gardens. They were getting whiny about it so we made up a game where they had to look for an animal on each of the statues in the garden. Amazingly, there was some kind of animal on every statue. Here we are heading to the next one.
Another gold fountain statue
Checking out the fountain (and the castle in the background)
Leah didn't want to smile for a picture, but Cameron did!
The star garden with the kids in the background
What cuties!
This was a really cool path with vines growing over the top of it - perfect for running down
We asked Cam to wait for Leah so they could run through the tunnel together
I love how much they love each other! :)
Once we got out of the tunnel, we had a long up hill walk to the grotto. Leah wasn't fast, but she made it the whole way up on her own. She made a lot of stops to rest and check out the leaves.
Mama and Leah making our way up the hill
This is the king's grotto - it was built so that he could have his own performances of Swan Lake. The king was a recluse and didn't really want to go see shows with other people, but he loved Swan Lake. He would have an entire cast come out and do performances for him while he watched from his boat. The water in the grotto was also heated to 85 degrees so he had his own heated indoor swimming pool as well. Not a bad deal!
Cameron, Leah and Mama in the grotto
After we finished looking at the grotto, we trekked back down in a drizzling rain. Here is a view of the castle nestled in the valley forest. It was so beautiful, even in the rain we could definitely see why the king picked out this spot.
This picture is taken from the green gazebo you could see in the earlier picture. The castle is in the middle of the picture, with various fountains and gardens on all sides of it.
Cam and Leah in the gazebo. They are so darn cute!
We finished up checking out the gardens at Linderhof and grabbed some lunch on our way out. By this time the drizzle had turned into POURING rain and we were happy to get back in the car. It was around 1pm so we headed over to Neuschwanstein Castle, about an hour away. Both kids (and Mama) fell asleep on the ride over so it was a good nap in the rainy weather.
We parked at Neuschwanstein and headed towards the castle - this is what we found! A scaffolding-covered mist-enshrouded castle. Sigh....
For this being the castle that we had really built up to the kids (Cinderella's castle!), it was pretty darn unimpressive. They thought it was pretty cool anyways, but Tim and I, having seen it before, knew what they were missing out on.
We decided that the usual 20 minute walk up to the castle would be a pain in the butt in the rain, so we were going to take the bus to Marienbrucke and then walk to the castle from there. It was around 2:30 at this point, but when we went to buy tickets the first available English tour of the castle wasn't until 4:45! This was a long time to wait, so we thought maybe we would just walk up and look around but not actually go on the castle tour.
On our walk up to the bus stop, the rain went from pouring to torrential downpour. We ran for cover at the nearest overhang we could find and ducked in there for a while.
Yep, it is REALLY raining here
At this point, we peeked out from the overhang to look at the castle. This was the view of Neuschwanstein:
At this point we decided to scrap the plan entirely, because even if we got to Marienbrucke we wouldn't be able to see the castle, and we would get REALLY wet (even more so than we already were!). So we scrapped all plans and headed back to the car, checking out a few gift shops along the way. Here is Cameron modeling our umbrella while he and Daddy waited for Mama and Leah to go potty.
The kids said that they really enjoyed themselves and loved the castles, so despite the rain we still had lots of fun today!
