My Excellent European Adventure 60th Anniversary - Chapter 9: Oberammergau and Linderhof Palace

 

From Venice, we doubled back west then turned north to Trento and Bolzano heading for Innsbruck, Austria.  This route took us from sea level in Venice, then through the Italian Alps over the Brenner Pass (elevation 4,490 ft.), and we hoped that our recently-repaired Morris minivan would make it.  It did, without incident.

We had plotted a little side trip to visit two interesting places in southeast West Germany (Bavaria) -- Oberammergau and Linderhof Palace --  about 50 miles north of Innsbruck, so we had to go through Innsbruck to get there.  I'll talk about Innsbruck in my next post; here I talk about our side trip destinations.

Oberammergau

Being good -- but young, naive -- Christians at the time, we wanted to visit the site of the decennial Oberammergau Passion Play depicting events from the life of Jesus.  Our interest was also partially motivated by the fact that in the Wichita Mountains near Lawton, Oklahoma (Bill's and my home town) an annual passion play (known as the "Easter Pageant") has been performed every Easter by local cast and crew at the Holy City of the Wichitas.  Begun in 1926, it's the longest continuously performed passion play in North America.

Holy City of the Wichitas
Photo by Larry Smith via Wikimedia Commons

The Oberammergau Passion Play began much earlier . . . in 1634.  Legend has it -- but history doesn't actually confirm -- that after half of the town's population died from the bubonic plague, the remaining townspeople asked God to spare them from the plague and vowed to perform a passion play every ten years depicting the life and death of Jesus.  Again according to legend, after that vow, no townspeople died from the plague.

The play was performed every ten years from 1634 to 1674, and thereafter every decadal year since 1680.  Throughout the centuries, there have been several cancellations (primarily due to European wars and, most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic) and a few off-cycle performances to commemorate the 300th and 350th anniversaries of the play.

When we visited Oberammergau, we were naively unaware of the antisemitic elements of the play, which, after the defeat of Germany in World War II, came under increasing pressure from American Jews.  In 1950, playwright Arthur Miller and composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein led a petition to cancel the play, but the townspeople restaged the 1934 (300th anniversary) version of the play which Hitler had attended.  Controversy and revisions to rid the play of anti-Jewish tropes continue to this day.

The theater we visited in 1966 was built in the 1890s and hosted its first performance of the play in 1900.  You can't tell from the photo below, but the theater is huge!  It can accommodate 4,700 people in the audience and hundreds on stage.

To give you a better sense of the scale, here's what it looks like with an audience:

Photo: Andreas Praefcke
via Wikimedia Commons

After touring the theater, I lagged behind the group to get the first photograph above and got locked in -- a classic photographer move!  It took a few minutes before they noticed I was missing and unlocked the exit to liberate me.

Linderhof Palace and the Mysterious Death of King Ludwig II of Bavaria

About 15 miles from Oberammergau is Linderhof Palace, the smallest of three palaces built in the late 1800s by King Ludwig II of Bavaria.  Outside Germany Ludwig II is sometimes referred to as the Mad King, a term we had heard, but we didn't know why he was called that.  It's due to the circumstances of his deposition and mysterious death -- about which, more below.

In Bavaria during his lifetime, however, he was known as the Swan King or the Fairy Tale King, due to his extravagant devotion to music, theatre, and palaces.  Linderhof was the only castle that was actually completed in his lifetime.  He lived in it from 1876 until his death in 1886 at age 40.

The most famous of Ludwig's three palaces is, of course, the iconic Neuschwanstein Castle, which appears in travel posters for Germany, as well as on German currency and postage stamps, and it served as the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty castle.  Neuschwanstein was a bit too far out of our itinerary, so we had to settle for Linderhof.

Neuschwanstein Castle
Photo by Thomas Wolf
via Wikimedia Commons

When you hear the term "the Mad King," you may imagine some 18th century king with a powdered white wig, waving his hands and yelling at people . . . something like this:

But Ludwig II of Bavaria was a young, late 19th century monarch, who stood 6' 4" and looked like this:

Photo by Joseph Albert
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Photographer unknown

He ascended to the throne in 1864, when he was 18.  Two years later, Bavaria and its allies came under Prussian hegemony when they were defeated in the Austro-Prussian war, and in 1871 Bavaria became part of the German Empire.  Ludwig increasingly withdrew from day-to-day affairs of state, in favor of extravagant artistic and architectural projects (e.g., Linderhof, Neuschwanstein, and others).

Ludwig was also an enthusiastic patron of composer Richard Wagner.  Wagner had a notorious reputation as a political radical and philanderer who was constantly on the run from creditors.  Ludwig was likely the savior of Wagner's career; without Ludwig, Wagner's later operas are unlikely to have been composed, much less premiered at the prestigious Munich Royal Court Theatre, which went on to become the Bavarian State Opera.

At the time of our visit to Linderhof, we knew a little about Ludwig's connections to Wagner.  But we didn't know anything of his sexuality; he was probably gay.  He had close male friends as an adolescent, and other close male relationships as an adult.  On becoming king, he was under pressure to produce an heir and in 1867 became engaged to his 19-year-old cousin.  Nine months later, after multiple postponements of the wedding, he cancelled the engagement.  According to the biography in Wikipedia, 

Ludwig never married nor had any known mistresses. His diary, private letters, and other documents reveal his strong homosexual desires, which he struggled to suppress to remain true to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

We toured the grounds and interior of the palace, but I only took two pictures of the exterior.  The day we were there, there was a boys choir that performed on the steps.

Ludwig spent all his own private royal revenues (although not state funds as is commonly thought) on Linderhof and other projects.  But he borrowed extensively and defied all attempts by his ministers to restrain him.  When his castle-building caused the virtual bankruptcy of the Bavarian state, his ministers accused him of insanity, deposed him on grounds of mental illness -- hence, "the Mad King" -- and had him committed to custody at Lake Starnberg castle, about 50 miles away from Linderhof and closer to Munich. 

The day after his imprisonment, Ludwig disappeared while out for a walk with his physician.  His corpse was discovered a few hours later, along with the corpse of his physician.  The death was officially declared to be suicide by drowning, but the circumstances of his death remain open to question.  Ludwig was a strong swimmer; the water was less than waist-deep where his body was found; and there was no water found in his lungs at the autopsy.  Nor does the suicide theory explain the mysterious death of his physician the same day. 

Shortly after his death, Ludwig's castles were opened to the public as museums. Today, Ludwig II's architectural and artistic legacy includes many of Bavaria's most important tourist attractions.  Linderhof Palace is one of them.

Next post:  Innsbruck

My Excellent European Adventure 60th Anniversary - Chapter 8: La Serenissima

 

                                                                              Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
                                                                When a new planet swims into his ken;
                                                                Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
                                                                He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
                                                                Looked at each other with a wild surmise—
                                                                Silent, upon a peak in Darien.   

                                                                                       -- John Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"

The evening of the orchestra concert, we didn't venture beyond the Piazza San Marco.  But the next day we spent exploring the city.

There were plenty of people around -- it was high tourist season (late July) -- but, thankfully, back then there were no floating hotels disgorging 5,000 passengers into the Piazza every day.  

Through the Campers' Association, we had arranged a tour of the Basilica San Marco at the east end of the Piazza . . .

 . . . and got a great view of the entire Piazza from the balcony above the main entrance.

Construction of the current basilica began in 1063, a hundred years before construction of Notre-Dame de Paris began (1163) and 323 years before construction of the Duomo in Milan (1386).  Like most cathedrals in Europe, the basilica went through multiple phases of construction over hundreds of years.

Venice began as a small settlement of refugees from the mainland in the 5th century CE to escape barbarian invasions, especially by Atilla the Hun in 452 CE.  For almost a thousand years (810 - 1797!), Venice was the capital of The Most Serene Republic of Venice ("La Serenissma" for short), a major financial and maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto (when the navy of the European "Holy League" defeated the navy of the Ottoman Empire in 1571).

Thanks to its geographic location, Venice became an important center of commerce -- especially silk, grain, and spice from Asia and Africa -- and of art from the 13th century to the end of the 17th century.  Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center, emerging in the 9th century and reaching its greatest prominence in the 14th century.  This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history.

None of that, however, was on my mind as we made our way through the city's labyrinthine streets, passageways, and bridges.  The pedestrian experience of Venice was (and still is), in effect, a series of physical and psychological epiphanies.  Hence the lines from Keats at the top of this post.

Away from the vast open space of the Piazza San Marco, you walk in narrow corridors that are open to the sky, but deeply shadowed except at mid-day due to the high walls of the buildings on either side.  Then you turn a corner to emerge into a small, bright courtyard or square, from which there are usually multiple exits, or an occasional dead end.

Street (or alley) names are painted on the walls of buildings, but streets/alleys change names frequently, so it's easy to get lost, which can be very discomfiting if you are trying to reach a specific destination.  Fortunately, there are no minotaurs in Venice.  (But I have to say that the geography of Venice is used to very creepy effect in the 1973 film, Don't Look Now, in which a serial killer is on the loose leading to a very unpleasant epiphany.)

So we wandered through the city, headed (somewhat randomly) for the Rialto bridge, the oldest of four bridges across the Grand Canal.  It was built between 1588 and 1591, and mentioned in Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice, soon afterwards (1598).

The bridge is huge -- 75 feet wide, spanning 104 feet across the canal -- and features built-in retail arcades where tourists can buy high-end souvenirs at high-end tourist prices.

This shopping area is not on the Rialto bridge itself, but is at one end of it.

At some point, we stopped for lunch at a little open-air restaurant away from the Piazza.  Being a thoughtless, 16-year-old American, I asked the waiter, "Do you speak English?".  He answered, in perfect English, "No, but I speak very good Italian."  Zing!

After lunch we continued our random walk and eventually found our way back to the Piazza.  My friend, Bill, and I sat down at one of the outdoor restaurants in the Piazza and ordered some American refreshment:  Coca-Cola.  (If you look closely at the table, you'll see the familiar bottles.)

We knew things in Europe were more expensive than in the U.S., but  we were still surprised to learn the Cokes were 50 cents each.  At home they were a dime!  Now a Coke in Venice probably costs $5 -- or maybe more!

There was one more mission to accomplish in Venice:  a gondola ride.  Docked at the waterside entrance to the Piazza, there are dozens of gondolas (and hundreds of pigeons) . . .

We weren't quite ready to take a ride, but we were curious how much it would cost.  So we approached a gondolier and asked.  "12,000 lira" he said.  (In 1966 this was about $20 US; there were four of us interested in a ride.)

We said, OK, thanks very much, turned around and walked away.  We hadn't gone 50 feet when the gondolier hustled up saying, "Hello Americans!  I take you for 10,000 lira."  We said thanks but not right now, and walked away again.  And again the gondolier pursued us, offering a lower price.  We waved him off and kept walking.  Still he persisted, this time giving us the story of his wife and children and mother and how he had to make a living to support them.

Only then did we realize that this was a negotiation.  His final offer:  4,000 lira (about $6.50) for four of us.  Feeling abashed at our naivete, we said OK and took the ride.

The Bridge of Sighs,
built in 1602, connects the Doge's Palace to a prison

I learned a very important lesson from that experience.  To be successful in a negotiation, you have to be able to walk away.

Next post:  On to Innsbruck, Austria, with a side trip to Oberammergau and Linderhof Palace in West Germany (yes, it was  West Germany in 1966).

My Excellent European Adventure 60th Anniversary - Chapter 7: Milan to Venice

 

                                                     There are good days, and there are bad days.  This is one of them.

                                                                                                -- Lawrence Welk

We left Milan and picked up the Autostrada A4 (now also known as E70), anticipating a 3- or 4-hour drive to Venice in our Morris minivan.  The plan was to arrive in Venice around noon; park the van and take a vaporetto to the youth hostel we had booked on the island of Giudecca to drop our stuff.  Then we would take another vaporetto across to the Piazza San Marco for the afternoon and evening.  But the Universe had other plans for us.

Just east of Padua, about 30 miles from Venice, we were rolling along at about 50 mph  -- about as fast as the minivan would go with nine people in it -- while car after car went whizzing by in the fast lane with apparently no speed limits.  And then . . . the oil pressure gauge on the dashboard started dropping into the danger zone, so we pulled off the highway.

What do we do now?  No cell phones.  No AAA.  So we waited.

I don't remember how it happened, but eventually a tow truck appeared and in broken Italian and English Tom explained the apparent problem.  The tow operator hooked us up, and Tom and maybe a couple of others (not me) rode in the truck with the driver while the rest of us hung on for dear life in the minivan.  

Next Stop:  Dolo

The tow truck took us to a little town called Dolo, barely 15 miles from Venice.  So close, and yet so far!

After unhooking us from the truck, the truck driver and a couple of strapping young Italian men pushed the minivan through a narrow passage into a courtyard, where they began to look in the engine compartment and under the van, talking in typical Italian style -- lots of gestures, but earnestly, not conspiratorially.

Eventually, they concluded that the oil pan drain plug had come off and drained all the oil.  If we hadn't pulled off the road when we did, it would have caused serious damage to the engine.  This was a simple problem to diagnose, but a much harder problem to fix:  Where do you get a plug of the right diameter, thread size and pitch for a non-Italian vehicle?

While all this was going on, seemingly out of nowhere (but undoubtedly from one of the buildings surrounding the courtyard) a fiery young woman (think "Carmen") came running toward the men standing near the minivan, screaming and brandishing a large cast-iron skillet.  Instantly, one of the men bolted and, after a brief chase around the courtyard, two others disarmed (dis-skilleted?) her and pulled her, literally kicking and screaming, back into a building.

The whole episode probably only lasted a minute, but we were stunned . . . speechless.  Once again, we realized we were definitely not in Oklahoma anymore, Toto.

After a while -- I have no recollection of how long it was -- the oil pan plug was replaced and the oil refilled.  They fired up the engine and the oil pressure came up and seemed stable.  Tom paid them somehow -- I think with American Express checks -- and we got back on the road to Venice.

Next Stop:  Venice

By this time it was very late in the afternoon, so our plan of a casual afternoon in Venice had drained away with the engine oil.  We parked the minivan outside of town (I think at the railroad station), took a vaporetto ferry to the hostel on Giudecca, and ate dinner there.  But we were determined to make the most of our time, so after dinner we caught a vaporetto across to the Piazza San Marco.

The light was fading fast . . .

. . . and by the time we reached the main island, it was almost dark.

The vaporetto dock was over here . . .

. . . and to get to the Piazza San Marco, we had to walk about a hundred yards from the dock to the waterside entry to the Piazza:

As we approached, I heard music . . . orchestral music, live three-dimensional music, not two-dimensional music blasting from loudspeakers.  We rounded the corner into the vast open space of the Piazza, and there was a small orchestra, with 15, maybe 20, players with violins, cellos, horns, and woodwinds!  And overhead and surrounding the orchestra were strings of lights suspended on poles, with bulbs one or two feet apart.  With the music, the lights, the magnificent Piazza . . . I was transported.  I watched and listened, and time seemed to vanish.  It was truly magical!

As I recall, the orchestra was located about here, with players facing the southern side of the Piazza (on the left in this photo).

So here's the thing:

If we had been able to follow our original plan, and had not had vehicle trouble, we would probably never have seen the orchestra.  We would have arrived in time to spend the afternoon, then we would have headed back to the hostel on Giudecca for dinner and called it a day.  The Universe works in mysterious, and sometimes wonderful, ways.

One more post about my experience in Venice will follow this one.

My Excellent European Adventure 60th Anniversary - Chapter 6: Paris to Milan

P.S. to my previous post about Paris -- I have found the photo I took while crossing the traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe on foot.  Here it is:

Now . . . Paris to Milan!

 

From Paris we took 4 or 5 days (I don't remember exactly how many) to travel to Milan by way of  Strasbourg; Basel; Zurich . . .

Limmatquai, Zurich

. . . Lucerne, where we bought watches and other Swiss jewelry creations . . .

Harry Ruttimann's jewelry store, Lucerne

. . . Lauterbrunnen (a Swiss village in the Bernese Alps with the magnificent 974-ft Staubbach waterfall, the highest free-falling waterfall in Switzerland) . . .

Lausanne; Geneva, where we drove by the Palace of Nations, home of the United Nations in Geneva and originally intended to house the League of Nations . . .

. . . Chamonix; then through the Mont Blanc tunnel into Italy.

Mont Blanc tunnel, Italian side

Here's a map of our general route:

Somewhere along the way -- I think it was at the Grindelwald youth hostel (a very popular winter skiing and summer hiking destination) -- our itinerary intersected with the other group's.  They had added the letters "US" to one of their van's rear windows with medical adhesive tape, so when we were departing the next morning (before they did), we added "SR" to the other rear window:

We didn't wait around to see their reaction, and of course the "SR" didn't last very long, but it was a fun prank . . . and we heard about it from them later in the trip.

I don't remember what time we finally arrived in Milan, but we didn't do much exploration because we had planned to stay only one night -- we were more interested in Venice. Milan is Italy's second-largest city, a major international center for industry, finance (the Italian stock market is located there), art, fashion, science, and music (La Scala opera house is there).  Looking back on it now, it's clear that there was a lot more to see in Milan than we allowed time for.

Most of our time was spent in the Piazza del Duomo, where the magnificent Gothic Milan cathedral is located.

Construction of the cathedral began in 1386, and with an ever-changing parade of architects, engineers, and politicians, the building was about half finished by 1402.  But construction stalled until 1480 due to lack of money and ideas, and changing political regimes.  The work proceeded intermittently throughout the 16th through 19th centuries -- longer than Gaudi's now almost finished Sagrada Familia in Barcelona! -- and the last portal was inaugurated in 1965, a year before we arrived.

(For comparison, construction of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris began in 1163 and was substantially completed by 1260.)

Because of its contrasting styles (principally Roman and Gothic), the cathedral has been praised and panned.  John Ruskin, the influential Victorian art historian and critic, said the cathedral "steals from every style in the world: and every style spoiled."  In 1875 Oscar Wilde called it "an awful failure . . . it is, however, imposing and gigantic as a failure."  But Mark Twain visited it in 1867 and in Chapter 18 of Innocents Abroad wrote "What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so vast! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful! A very world of solid weight, and yet it seems . . . a delusion of frostwork that might vanish with a breath!"

Another Milan landmark that opens onto the same plaza as the cathedral is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.  It's a high-end shopping arcade built from 1865 to 1877 with an iron and glass dome covering broad pedestrian hallways.

That's it for now.  Next post:  Milan to Venice, and the Very Bad/Very Good Day.

My Excellent European Adventure 60th Anniversary - Chapter 5: On to Paris

 

From Birmingham, we headed south and east toward the white cliffs of Dover, where we embarked via ferry for the Continent and the remainder of our six-week trip.

We crossed the Channel . . . 

L to R: Chris, Judy, Hank, Susan, Bill

. . . landed at Ostend, and immediately set out for Brussels, and a day later drove from Brussels to Paris, arriving the day after Bastille Day.  Reviewing stand bleachers were still in place along the Champs-Élysées.

Instead of lodging in a youth hostel with large communal sleeping areas, in Paris we had the luxury of small individual rooms (but no private baths) in a pensión near the Place de la Bastille, complete with a birdcage elevator that would barely accommodate two people . . . or just one with luggage!

In Paris, you're never far away from a wonderful small bakery, so Tom would make a breakfast run every day, and we indulged in fresh bread, croissants, butter, and jam.  I don't remember many meals on the trip, but those breakfasts were great.  And I must say that at dinner in a very nice restaurant on the Champs-Élysées I had the best French fries I had ever tasted.

We made all the mandatory tourist stops.  Here are a couple of photos of me for the record:

(Yes, that's the tie I bought at Hawkes & Co. in London.  But now I'm wearing a jacket instead of the sports coat that was stolen in Birmingham.)

At the Louvre, we had fairly close-up access to the Mona Lisa:  no timed tickets or hordes of viewers when we were there.  And for an art form at the opposite end of the cultural spectrum, after a group discussion about appropriateness for minors and everyone's comfort level about seeing female nudity, our group voted to go to the Folies Bergère.  We were definitely not in Oklahoma (or Kansas) anymore, Toto.

As enjoyable as Paris was, it was easy to get overloaded with art, architecture, history, food, and the sheer energy of the city.  But there's one place . . . and one moment . . . that stands out in my memory of Paris.  

The Eiffel Tower is the graceful, soaring, iconic landmark on all the travel posters.  But the Arc de Triomphe, commanding the western end of the Champs-Élysées, has the gravitas of war, remembrance, and national pride.  

August 25, 1944
Photo courtesy of Imperial War Museum

August 29, 1944
Photo by Jack Downey,
U.S. Office of War Information

A rare absence of traffic on the Champs-Élysées
Mid-July, 1966

We approached the Place de l'Étoile (renamed Place Charles de Gaulle after his death in 1970) from the southeast on Avenue Marceau.

Notice the big Chevrolet Impala on the right!

A few of us were crazy enough to cross through the traffic in the circle.  Here's what it looked like (what was I thinking??): 

We went up to the roof and got great views of the city.

Looking east at the Champs-Élysées

Completed in 1836, the Arc de Triomphe is also the location of France's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I, marked by an Eternal Flame.  France had about 1.4 million military deaths and 4.2 million wounded in World War I, compared to approximately 117,000 deaths and 204,000 wounded from the United States, so honoring the War dead was (and still is) a major national commitment for the entire country.

The flame was first lit on November 11, 1923, five years after the end of the War.  Since then it has been rekindled every evening at dusk, even during the Nazi occupation in World War II, with a ceremony organized by the Flame Committee under the Arc de Triomphe, Flame of the Nation.  Over 500 organizations from all over France are members of the Committee.

We were fortunate to be there at the ceremony one evening.  At 6:30, everything around the Arc stopped (including traffic), and the area beneath the vault of the Arc was cleared (except for that pigeon), with gemdarmes stationed in front of the crowd every few feet.  No barriers, no ropes . . . just respect.

Then the organization responsible for that day's ceremony assembled in the traffic circle and marched forward with a wreath.

I am still puzzled by the flag the group carried.  It's not a national flag of any country that I know.  Perhaps it's an organization or regional flag.

Nevertheless, it was a very solemn and meaningful ceremony, and we were privileged to be there to witness it.