Festivals, Beer, and Castles!

Update on the last couples days....

Lena caught a little bit of a cold so we had to slow down a bit for the last couple days. But we still did a bunch anyway.

Sunday we went to the Markt Fest which is the beer festival located in the center of Prien. It is the traditional, annual festival that takes place right next to the old Bavarian church and museum (that I posted pictures of earlier). This is what one website says about Prien's Marktfest:

"Prien, like the rest of Bavaria, has a strong folk tradition, and this is in evidence at the annual Marktfest, sponsored by the Traditional Costume Society (Trachten). It is an all day affair with four bands (brass, jazz, alphorn and yodelling), schuhplattler (slapping) dancing, games, food (pork knuckles, barbecued trout, six types of bratwurst, sauerkraut...) and the smallest beer glass is 1 litre."

It was just as that said. Full of food and music and dance. There were tons of people all sitting close together in long table and people in Lederhosen and Dirndls (respectively, of course) walking about with huge glasses of beer in their hands. There were children dancing the traditional Baravian dances on one end and adults performing them on the other. One of the most amazing things to me was the whip cracking and shoe slapping dances the men would do. They had to all be so in time with each other and the music. Quite impressive. It basically looked just like this video from YouTube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=q6EzPkqt2Rk&mode=related&search=

It's amazing in person. Also, the beer glasses are really 1 L....that's alot of Beer! They weren't lying! And some of the "waiters" or whatever you would call them could carry like 8 of them at once....filled with beer! There are lots of pictures up on here and there will be more when we go to the next festival. Oh, and who do I run into at the beer fest? Someone from Port Angeles.....good ol' Kevin from my same class! Ha! Small world, eh?

Okay, let's get to my favorite part now....the architecture! We toured a castle today! Lena's Oma took Lena and me to Herrenchiemsee. The castle was built by the same king, King Ludwig the II, as built Neuschwanstein Castle; the castle on which Disney has based most of it's fairytale castles including Cinderella's castle. His castles are famous world wide for their fairytale quality. Herrenchiemsee is located on the biggest island in the middle of the lake Chiemsee that I am living next to. He built it during his reign in the 1800's in order to pay respect to King Louis XIV of France. The Palace of Versailles was used as a model for this palace, although only the middle section was ever completed. When you get off the boat and walk onto the island you see a big, normal Bavarian looking building which apparently was the original "castle" on the island where all the important political events took place. You can either take a lovely walk through the woods or you can take a lovely horse carriage ride through the woods until you reach the palace. When you arrive there you see the garden and the fountains first. The fountains, I think, were my favorite part. They all told stories and had amazing details in the figures. I took so many pictures of the statues and figures surrounding the castle.

Then, when you walk up to the actual castle, the details become even more ornate. Every window cornice is unique to that window. There are huge statues along the roof and in every nook and cranny. I couldn't believe the extent at which he decorated the littlest things on the exterior of the building. Then the tour of the rooms...oh! The rooms all have gold leaf and marble everywhere. There are more paintings of the French King than of Ludwig II himself. There are huge crystal chandeliers in every room and even a unique porcelain chandelier in Ludwig's dining room. (He actually destroyed the plans for that one himself as to make sure that no one would ever have another one like it.) Paintings adorn all the walls and ceilings and hand-emroidered curtains of velvet are in every room. In one room, he has two huge chandeliers and the two biggest mirriors in the castle so that the crystal will be seen for eternity. It was definately overdone, but he certainly made the statement he was going for....that is...in the rooms that are finished. There are 70 rooms in this castle alone and only 20 of them are actually finished. After room and room of gold and velvet the tour guide said "And this is what happens when a king runs out of money." We walked into this room who's shape was much like the others but was made entirely out of handmade bricks and wood. He actually just plain ran out of money! There wasn't even plaster on the bricks. No paintings, no gold. Only a couple stone statues sat in the room, unplaced waiting for it to be finished. Amazing! It was cool to see how it was built though. Nine million handmade bricks were made and then brought by boat to the island. 26 exotic and rare woods were used as inlay just on Ludwig's desk. I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to think I could like living as a Princess. (; Okay, so enough about the castle. (I know, some of you aren't historical architecture geeks like I am...)

So let's move on.....onto some more architecture!! Hooray! Quickly this time though. When we left to go back to the boats we had lunch at the cafe that is now at the old castle or political meeting place. Behind this building is an old church or parish called St. Maria's. It was built in 1469! It was sooo cute! Of course, we went inside and saw the lovely old religious paintings on the ceilings and the walls.

Then we took another boat to the second largest island, Frauenchiemsee. (Get it yet? Herr = man, Frau = women....Nevermind.) This is a much smaller island that is famous for it's ever blooming flowers. The island also holds an old women's convent or abbey that was built in 782. Can you believe it? I couldn't. I looked at paintings on the walls that were painted over 1000 years ago. I walked on stone that wasn't made with a curve in it, but had been worn by that many people walking over it over the years. It was very neat. Also, just a tidbit....since the abbey buildings were built so long ago, all the doorways were Cori-sized....any guesses as to why? Well, only about 1900 it was very common for all people to be Cori-sized. The nutrition was so much worse so people did not grow to be very big, nor did they live to be very old. Just thought I would share that from past research. (: See, I am not tiny, I was just born in the wrong time. More interesting info on the abbey's history can be found here:

http://www.schloesser.bayern.de/englisch/palace/objects/fr_chiem.htm

Anyway, I have purchased my train pass to be able to go to the Netherlands and to the Mediterranean now officially, so that will be coming up soon. Hope you enjoyed today's history lesson....I mean, blog. (:

Thanks for reading along!

Cori

PS. Don't forget....you can always ask me questions about stuff in my pictures or blogs!