Day 10: Linderhof, Tegelberg & Arrival in Munich
By Ross and Nate
Today we started our trip to Munich by stopping at the grotto at King Ludwig II’s hunting estate. The grotto was his personal man cave literally, as it was used for his own entertainment and was inspired by a Wagnerian opera, the goddess Venus, and the blue lagoon grotto in Italy. In addition to our a completely German spoken grotto tour we also visited the rest of the estate including the castle the surrounding grounds. His lodge was a modest outer size for a kind of the time however the inside was as grand as could be. The estate consisted of stunning views such as his front prayer garden and swimming pool and fountain as well as the Alps fed waterfall in the rear of the house. Both of our tours today were spoken in almost entirely German and gave us a lot of insight to how the royals lived in Germany during the late 1800’s.
After our adventurous trip to the Venus Grotte and the Wittelsbacher family hunting grounds, we took the bus to the Tegelberg, where we started off with some fun right off the bat. Frau Bauerlein surprised us all with tickets to ride the alpine coasters right at the base of a mountain. The alpine coasters took us down about a few hundred feet while going as fast as you pleased. We had so much fun we insisted on going a second time to see who could go the fastest. (Editors’ Note: We can tell Victoria is a competitive downhill skier!!) The coasters weaved around sharp turns at high speeds-filling the body with loads of adrenaline and dopamine. When we were finished with our coaster riding, we took a quick walk to the entrance of the gondola. We got on a gondola that would take us up to the top of the mountain. As we climbed higher and higher, soon came some of the best views of the countryside. Aside from the countryside, a main attraction that was also visible was two more castles here in the state of Bavaria: Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Though we didn’t tours those castles, their beautiful architecture and size were enough to fill our imagination with an idea of what it may look like. Soon, we reached the end of our gondola ride at the top of the mountain. There were many areas to take pictures and admire the countryside and mountain ranges that went on for miles. It was certainly much colder up there than it had been at the base-but that was no issue for us. Thanks to Frau Bauerlein and Bird, we were able to not only celebrate Maria’s birthday (Happy Birthday Maria!!!), but able to have some warm desserts and drinks in the Panorama Restaurant as well. (Editors’ Note: They all tried the Bavarian dessert Germknödel with vanilla sauce and it was a hit.) Sadly we were not able to hike up or down the mountain because of time constraints, but we did catch a little free time to explore the top of the mountain for some time before taking the gondola back down. And we saw paragliders take off from the top of the mountain! After saying a sad farewell to the Alps for the remainder of our trip, we hopped back on the bus for a two hour trip to Munich!!! After checking into our hotel and settling in, we all got ready for our group dinner at the Augustiner Bierkeller und Biergarten. Finally, after a delicious meal - and some time on the playground — it was time to get ready for bed and prepare for our next day in Munich.
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