Day 18: Castles & Sausages — Matt Goes Exploring

There are a lot of crappy people in the world. I know this sounds like a bad start, but let me finish. Today I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of some of the people who aren’t just not crappy, but are actually really good people. All thanks to a potentially crazy guy named Ludwig II that I might someday write a movie about.

I woke up this morning, feeling no different; another day, another donut. I met in the lobby of the hostel to go on a castle tour. I’m terrible with German, so I can never remember the name. But I’ll look it up just for you. It’s called “Neuschwanstein.” See? Not easy to remember.

To give a brief overview of this castle, it is located in southern Germany, about two hours from Munich by train. It was built in the mid 1800s by Ludwig the Second, King of Bulvaria (before Bulvaria and many other small countries came together to form Germany). This castle has gone on to become a very popular tourist attraction and was the inspiration for the famous Disney castle.

The castle was fantastic to look at, but what really caught me eye about this trip was the view of the foothills that the castle was nestled in. The mountains loomed over the countryside, covered in alpine trees. I could have stared at those mountains for hours.

The tour of the castle was hosted by the hostel. Our tour guide Jamie brought us to the train, and walked us up to the castle, telling us all about the area and the life of Ludwig, the soon to be King of Bulvaria.

As the tour departed from Munich, another traveler was nice enough to talk to me. His name is Lachlan, and it just so happened that today was his 21st birthday. So wish him a happy birthday!

We talked for a while, and sat together on the train. For most of the ride, he napped while I read more of my book. We got a great look at the mountains and the German farmlands in the latter half of the trip, even seeing some rare camels, which are not at all native to the region, but were on a farm.

We had to hike up a small mountain to reach the castle, but it was an enjoyable walk. The tour passed by a beautiful lake that rested in the valley below the castle, a lake that Ludwig would swim frequently, back when he was still swimming.

While we hiked, both up and down, I couldn’t help but get distracted by all the small details of the forest we were walking through. I often fell behind the group and had to catch up after observing the peculiar way a trees roots were overtaking a rock. This probably sounds odd, but I couldn’t help myself.

Lachlan and I made some more friends on the tour. We met Cesar and Taylor from Las Vegas, who got engaged just a month ago, so congrats to them. We also met Andy from London, who, it turned out, would be my roommate at the hostel that night. Then there was Adrienne, Theresa, and their third friend whose name I can’t remember. To be fair, she didn’t hang out with us later, so I couldn’t quite get her name down. Sorry, you seemed pretty nice.

After the two hour train ride home, a few of us decided to go to the Hofbrahouse. This is the famous beer hall I have mentioned before. It was my last night so I figured it was time to finally check this place out and get an authentic German meal.

Inside this restaurant was pure chaos. I don’t know how it ran as well as it did, and it didn’t run that well. It was essentially a combination of a functioning restaurant and tourist attraction at the same time. Seating was complicated because each table had bench seating, so it was tough to claim a table if you had less than three people. The five of us that went eventually had to share a table with another couple.

The crazy thing about this place is that people are constantly coming in and out, some just to take photos, others to see if there is a table open. All the while the waiters have to run around keeping track of when people sit down and what they’ve all ordered.

I got a pretzel that was bigger than my head, so it was all worth it.

I also got four fired pork sausages and felt I had finally experienced German meats. Although it’s tough to compare myself to Lachlan, who glanced at the German menu and pointed at it randomly when the waiter asked what he wanted. When a full pork knuckle arrived for him, he barely hesitated to eat the whole thing. If you’re wondering what a pork knuckle is, let me know when you figure it out because I want to know too.

After eating too much we all returned to the hostel to have some drinks at the bar. There we met up with a few others from the tour that hadn’t come out to eat with us. The whole crew was there this time.

We celebrated Lachlan’s birthday. Then celebrated Theresa’s birthday (crazy right? Lachlan’s was today, and Theresa’s is tomorrow). Then we celebrated Adrienne’s birthday which had been last week. And finally we celebrated Cesar and Taylor’s engagement.

After all this celebrating, it wasn’t long before everyone said their goodbyes and went off to sleep. Most of us (myself included) were leaving Munich the next day.

Theresa, Adrienne, and I stayed up a little later. We talked about all kinds of things related to travel; how we were so grateful to be able to travel, the importance of experience over anything else, etc. But eventually we too got tired and had to go to sleep. I still had this blog post to write after all.

I had a lot of fun today meeting all these new people. It’s sad that I only got to spend a day with them, but who knows what the future holds? Maybe we’ll end up traveling in the same area again in the near future. Either way it’s good to connect with like-minded people. Helps to have proof when you tell yourself you’re not crazy. “But maybe they’re all crazy too.” Then I’m ok being crazy.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get on a train to Prague tomorrow, so I need to get some sleep. Goodnight, and here’s to tomorrow.

**Also, I did say something about writing a movie about Ludwig. So I guess I should explain more about that. Ludwig was raised a sheltered life in the same foothills that he would eventually build his castle on. There was some evidence that he was poorly treated and that his parents were rather neglectful. When his father died abruptly, he was forced to take the throne at a young age.

Eventually, years later, the Prussian government, in their attempts to reunite the German territories, conspired to overthrow Ludwig and replace him. They had several doctors proclaim him mentally unstable and they arrested him. He died in less than forty-eight hours after being arrested under rather mysterious circumstances that remain a mystery to this day.

I think there are the makings of a good story there. Who knows?