Royal Castle Tour Germany

We left early this morning in a blizzard on a double-decker bus to drive to 2 castles built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria. It snowed most of the night, so there was already a good bit of snow on the ground. As we drove south towards the Austrian border, it started snowing harder, and it did not stop until we got back to Munich, 10 hours later. The snow was great, but we were at the beginning of the Alps, so the scenery would have been awesome, but it was snowing too much to even know where we were. It was hard to get good pictures of the castles because of the weather. We could see them from good vantage points along the way, but the camera didn't do a good job of picking them up.
The first stop was Linderhof. The castle is actually not much more than a fancy house. The king actually referred to it as a villa. It was 2 stories with about 5 rooms on each floor. Ludwig II was never married and didn't like to entertain guests, so it was pretty much just him. However, he was quite eccentric. He liked to create a fantasy world around him, decorating with pictures of the French royal family, none of whom he ever met.
From here we stopped at a little town called Oberammergau. It is known for it's Passion Plays. Every 10 years the town puts on a play depicting the Passion of Christ. Apparently they do it for 20 weeks, and the performances are sold out a year in advance. Charming.
The last stop was at Hohenschwangau, the site of the most famous castle in the world, Neuschwanstein. Walt Disney used this castle as his design for the castle at Disney Land. This castle shows his true insanity. Parts of the castle look like it is part of the Candyland board game. He was obsessed with composer Richard Wagner and designed most rooms to be themes from his operas. They spent 19 years building the castle and then quit when Ludwig died, around 1868ish. The castle is only 1/3 complete. Crazy.
Sound of Music tomorrow. Sweet!!!!