night on the train about 7:45PM with threatening weather and began a
search for campground or room. The occassional spit of rain swayed the
voting against my camping (again) so the search began for a room.
Lugging our backpacks through town, we headed past the many storied
hotels in search of less expensive lodging, hopefully a zimmer, the
German equivalent of a B&B. We located a house thus marked and sought
out the landlord (zimmerlord?). Cindy and I held the packs while Sally
inspected the room on the third and final floor. She returned
reporting it suitable. 23€ each for the night, so we paid for two
nights, removed our shoes at the front door, donned house slippers and
hefted our packs to our new digs.
Imagine a college town with a housing shortage where the townspeople
see economic opportunity, dividing their houses into ever smaller but
more numerous spaces to accomodae both the incoming masses and their
pocketbooks. Our room's front wall was a sheet of particle board with
a door, walling off what used to be
the landing at the top of the stairs. Two twin beds shoved together
comprised one double, a mattress in a wood frame on the floor the
other. The wood framed mattress was in a sloped ceiling alcove
curtained from the other portion of the room. Think Animal House. Or
Joel Caldwell's last PLU housing arrengement minus the filth. The
toilet is in a alcove just big enough to drop your shorts and turn
around in to settle on the throne. The sink and shower in another
room. Had we been thinking, we would have refused the room, asked for
a another or a lower price. As it was, we took it. It is keeping us
dry and warm.
Now, contrast out present accomodations to those we came to tour;
Ludwig, the king of Bavaria's incredible castle Neuschawnstein perched
on a hill in the Bavarian alps and his father's castle on the ridge
below. Words cannot describe. Disney modeled his sleeping beauty
castle after this one. Soaring towers, lofty cut stone walls,
interior rooms gilded with gold, painted by artists, furniture hand
carved. Oppulance upon oppulance. Ludwig was motivated by what he saw
at the Palace at Versailles in France and decided to one up old King
Louis.
Problem though. He was spending a lot of the country's wealth on this
and people were unhappy about it. His Uncle had five psychiatrists
declare him insane even though they had never examined him and he was
dethroned. He arrived in Munich the next day, and the following day he
was found dead in a shallow lake, drowned with his personal
psychiatrist. Building on the castle stopped immediately leaving only
the third and fifth floors finished, the rest undone.
When I contrast Ludwig's Fussën accomodations and fate to mine I find
a particle board, top floor dive preferable to an unscheduled dive in
a lake.
The guide book said to allow an entire day for the castle tours due to
the large number of people (it is Europe's most popular tourist
attraction) but it is so efficiently organized and run we were out a
little after noon. A sack lunch at the foot of the castle and a bus
ride back to Fussën and we had an afternoon free. Unheard of! If we
hadn't booked the room for two nights we would have taken the next
train to the next destination. But instead we enjoyed a leisurely
afternoon in this small Bavarian town, planning the next few days
adventures, procurring train schedules and food and calling Andy to
wish him a happy birthday.
Chuck
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