The hills are alive with the sound of music
With songs they have sung for a thousand years
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music
My heart wants to sing every song it hears
My heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds
that rise from the lake to the trees
My heart wants to sigh like a chime that flies
from a church on a breeze
To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls over
stones on its way
To sing through the night like a lark who is learning to pray
I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I've heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more
Jonathan and I were excited for this Austrian leg of our adventure- we have been here before and remember it as being very beautiful and over the top on all things Mozart LOL. So it was natural to hop over the boarder and spend a few days singing the Sound of Music (much better than Mozart)!
On the way we paid a visit to another of King Ludwig's castles- this one the largest and most expensive, built as a tribute to Versalles in France- Herrenchiemsee. Located right off the autobahn is Chiemsee Lake- we ventured around this "sea of Bavaria" and found a ferry to Herreninsel to see the schloss (castle). Admission to the castle grounds was covered by our castle pass- however parking and the ferry were not so we paid about 30euro total for this royal excursion. The chickens enjoyed the boat ride and it actually made the experience more cool in their eyes. Daddy added to the cool factor by treating them to ice-cream!
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| Chiemsee Lake |
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| Our ferry ride:) |
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| 15 minute walk to the castle |
As expected it was much larger and grander than the modest Linderhof. The guided tour (in English) was very informative and gave more curious insight to Ludwig's shy and reclusive life- loneliness is on display just as prominently as the gold stautes and marble columns.
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| Herrenchiemsee and Team Haines |
Wikipedia Summary- The unfinished New Palace was designed by
Christian Jank,
Franz Seitz, and
Georg von Dollmann and built between 1878 and 1885. Between 1863 and 1886 16,579,674 Marks
[1] were spent on construction. Using a 0.2304
troy ounce (7.171 g) 1890 '20 Mark' gold coin as a benchmark, this equates to 190,998 oz of gold, which at October 2013 prices was worth approximately £154,000,000 (US$250,100,000).
Ludwig only had the opportunity to stay within the Palace for a few days in September 1885. After his death by drowning at just 40 in the following year, all construction work discontinued and the building was opened for the public. In 1923 Crown Prince Rupprecht gave the palace to the State of Bavaria.
Unlike the medieval themed Neuschwanstein Castle begun in 1869, the Neo-Baroque New Palace stands as a monument to Ludwig's admiration of King Louis XIV of France. Its great hall of mirrors' ceiling is painted with 25 tableaux showing Louis XIV at his best.
The palace was shaped in an 'U' with wings flanking a central edifice. Only 16 of the 70 rooms were on the ground floor.
[2] It was to have been an equivalent to the
Palace of Versailles, but only the central portion was built before the king died and construction was discontinued with 50 of the 70 rooms still incomplete. It was never intended to be a perfectly exact replica of the French royal palace and in several places even surpasses it. Like Versailles, the Hall of Mirrors has 17 arches, the Hall of Peace and the Hall of War on either side have three windows each. The window niches at Herrenchiemsee are wider than those at Versailles, making its central facade a few metres wider. The dining room features an elevator table and the world's largest
Meissen porcelain chandelier. Technologically, the building also benefits from nearly two centuries of progress. While the original Versailles palace lacked toilets, water, and central heat, the New Palace has all, including a large heated bathtub.
Being built on an island it is only accessible by water, today via a system of small ferries. As a result, and of being unfinished, Herrenchiemsee always remained slightly in the shadow of Neuschwanstein.
Jonathan booked our stay at the quaint and peaceful apartment on the outskirts of Salzburg. We were definitely in those singing hills and they were a sight! We had 2 porches to sit out and just take it all in! The village was small and something right out of a fairy tale nestled in the snow capped Austrian Alps. Our apartment had a kids bedroom, master, living/dining/kitchen combo, and a full bathroom- very accommodating for the chickens with a playroom in the basement and great for cooking meals there- saving my sanity and Jonathan's wallet.
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| tiny table - big family |
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| trying to get that perfect pic of all 4 has yet to happen |
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| hummm? |
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| there was a bunny friend at the apartment! |
Tuesday we had allotted the day to just explore Salzburg and walk around the city- trying to find a specific Easter egg shop from our last trip. Jonathan researched that giant looming structure above the city- turns out it is a…. wait for it……CASTLE! (imagine that right?!) So we roamed the streets, took in the beautiful and old churches, we enjoyed some of the street arts (painting, weird statue guy, and musicians) and of course we bought pretzels and Easter eggs, last but not least we toured the castle.
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| beer delivery |
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| Annabelle knockin |
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| great view |
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| Daddy wore baby girl the whole day- not stroller friendly |
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| The middles enjoyed openly roaming the castle- it wasn't crowed at all |
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Sam trying to bust out of the joint! There is some history about an
imprisoned archbishop that died here and haunts the castle. |
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| fire the canon |
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this contraption was the first of its kind- a mining type cart
hoisted up the steep track to the castle using horses- to deliver supplies |
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another view- it's pretty clever!
There is a modern elevator on the other side that uses
similar mechanics (minus the horses lol) we rode on the way up! |
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| yumm!! we bought 3 giant pretzels (cheese, cinnamon sugar, and chocolate) |
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we bought a water color painting from this French artist
He drew some fun sketches for the kids:) |
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| the city of Mozart and the creepy statue guy |
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| magic! |
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| eggs, eggs, eggs |
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| hand painted Easter eggs! |
We had a fun stay here! There's still a lot in the area we want to come back and do- the salt mines are at the top of the list! We are leaving in Von Trapp style, hoping to come back soon!
(Munich was scheduled as our next stop but it didn't happen-we plan on that happening soon as well)
