Linderhof Castle - Oberamergou

Today most of the group had an early start and we travelled a fairly short distance to the beautiful Linderhof Castle. Our first reaction when we saw the Castle was that it was a lot like Peterhoff which we visited in Russia a couple of years back. The grounds of the Castle are lovely and the statues and water fountains spilling over the gold figurines looked great. We then did a tour through the Castle itself and we enjoyed hearing about this rather recluse and unusual King Ludwick who rather kept to himself. Some would say he was ‘mad’, but he managed to accumulate a lot of wealth and property. He never married so the Royal succession stopped with his early, if suspicious death. We went to the Grotto which the King had had made up in the hills a bit and inside was a beautiful stage set at the back of a Lake with a large fresco painted behind the stage. Music  was playing when we got there and it is said that musicians often came there to play the Kings favourite music for him.

Leaving here we went back to the Hotel to pick up the rest of our tour group and we then travelled the short 12 kms to Oberammergau, which is where the Passion Play is enacted every 8 or so years.

The majority of buildings in this small township are decorated with murals on their walls and are lovely to walk around and discover. We had a couple of hours here in Oberammergau to wak around and to also have some lunch. 

We returned to the Hotel for a short time, and then we were off over the road to the Lovely Ettal Abbey. This place was founded in the 1330’s by Benedictine Monks and they are still living there and distilling liquor on a commercial basis.  We had a Monk show us around the Abbey and tell us various stories about the lace, and then we were taken to the Herb factory and had the use of various herbs in the distilling process explained to us. At the conclusion of this talk, Schnapps  made on the premises were available for tasting. The tour through the Abbey was very interesting and the Monk had a lovely sense of humour which made it even more pleasant.

We have a Bavarian dinner tonight which includes a show…should be interesting.