It was officially October. Füssen was shrouded in a dull gray and cold rain was pattering on the pavement just beyond our window. Hoping for a slow start to recover from yesterday’s trek, we settled on a small café featuring “breakfast eggs” (soft-boiled eggs served in stately metal cups) and yogurt muesli. The ambiance, however, was less enticing. Disappointed by the soundtrack of angsty 2000s-era love songs (Ryan Cabrera, Maroon 5, and Hoobastank), we quickly abandoned the peaceful morning plan for a trip to what our guidebook called “a real-life fairytale oasis.”
Our first stop was Alpsee Lake, an area nestled between wooded mountain slopes so picturesque that Bavarian kings chose to build their estates. Hohenschwangau Castle, the childhood home of King Ludwig II, seemed modest by castle-standards: two dozen rooms on three floors. The castle looked like it had been constructed out of beige Legos, with a blocky, pixelated quality that could double as the setting for the boss level in Super Mario World. Perched atop a hill, there were amazing views in every direction, but all the servants’ quarters, consisting of half-height doors and secret passageways, were cordoned off to visitors.
It was the first inkling we had for the Disneyfication at work. King Ludwig, seemingly unimpressed with his parents’ hobbit hole, got to work building his own more lavish palace after he took the throne at 19. Neuschwanstein was as much a testament to his vision as his incredible ego. Financed at a tremendous cost with taxpayer money, the castle was still uncompleted when the country plunged into a financial crisis so perilous that the government commission declared Ludwig mentally unfit to serve as king. No one, indeed, except Ludwig was ever supposed to live in the castle, except possibly for Richard Wagner, Ludwig’s besotted idol, for whom he dedicated the castle’s third and fourth floors (Ludwig was also known to watch Wagnerian operas in his bathrobe).
Nowadays, however, Neuschwanstein has lost some of its sheen. Clydesdales offered carriage rides to the lazy or infirm up the mountain, meaning the thirty minutes of uphill slogging to the Bavarian centerpiece was slick and mealy, punctuated with the stench of horse manure. Work crews atop wooden scaffolding repaired water damage in two of the castle’s wings. Crowds of tourists were so thick that we couldn’t glimpse the iconic Magic Kingdom panorama, complete with dainty turrets and cylindrical towers, on which the Disney castle was based.
Oh, but what I wouldn’t give for any of that inconvenience now! The €8 bratwursts, overpriced souvenirs, the shoving crowds. During our quarantine in Taipei, we get three meals brought to our hotel room door each day, a privilege I won’t soon take for granted. Still, one step outside the door is violation enough to be fined. The hermetically-sealed room that is my home for the next 14 days is about the size of King Ludwig’s broom closet. A floor length that two lunges could easily bound across. Even the blatant ostentation of Neuschwanstein—the grotto with a fake waterfall, wave machine, the gondola Ludwig was allegedly rowed around in by his minions—seems suddenly desirable.
For dinner, we managed to snag a meal at one of the few not-entirely-overpriced restaurants in Füssen. We split a veggie omelet and spaetzle (egg noodles in a thick gravy), which seemed to revitalize us. Walking back out, the rain started falling again. It may not have been the most magical place on Earth, but we felt the droplets keenly on our faces, and we smiled.