Today we went on a day-trip to a popular German summer resort, the Chiemsee (pronounced keem-zay), which is a large lake within view of the Alps. In the lake are three islands. The larger, Herreninsel (men's island) had a monastery. The second largest, Fraueninsel (women's island) had and still has a Benedictine convent. A third, krautinsel (veggie island) is supposedly where the monks and nuns got together for gardening.
On Herreninsel, King Ludwig II of Bavaria built the last of his fantasy palaces, one that he intended to be a replica of Versailles. Viewing this was the main point of the trip.
Getting There
We started the day by walking to the Haupt Bahnhof (the main train station) and boarding a Deutsches Bahn regional train for an hour-long ride.
The train was quite crowded but Marian snagged two seats in an upper level so we could see lush countryside rolling by, and catch our first glimpse of the Bavarian Alps.
We detrained in Prien, nearest town to the lake, and transferred to a steam train for a 2km ride to the lake shore.
It was slightly faster than walking.
At the shore we boarded a large motor ship for a 15-minute ride to Herreninsel. The boat was packed with an almost exclusively German crowd.
A half-mile stroll through the woods brought us into view of the Royal Palace.
It has the usual formal garden with trees that are perfect little cones.
And a suspicious lurker.
In front of the palace are three quite spectacular fountains. The first you encounter is the Latona fountain, copied from one at Versailles. The goddess Latona (Leto in Greek), wandering the earth, was denied water by some peasants whom she turned into frogs. The fountain commemorates this with a goddess and lots of reptiles. Water to all the fountains starts and stops on a ten-minute cycle, so we first saw it dry.
Click through for details.
Then the water comes on.
Two other gigantic fountains balance the front of the building.
It's not clear to us whether these also are copied from Versailles or are unique to Ludwig's design. The left one represents Fame flying on Pegasus, with War and Victory climbing up to her, and Envy and Guile falling off. Whatever.
The other is Fortune, attended (for obscure reasons) by Neptune and Triton. Whatever.
They're fine sculptures but being huge and quite dark, really don't photograph all that well. It's more fun taking the many attendant and auxiliary sculptures.
Is my bath ready?
If Fame catches you with her mirror, you're in trouble!
Dear Reader, you may be relieved to know that here, for the first time this trip, photography was not allowed inside. So we can't show you the incredible interiors of this palace. Whatever displays of marble, gilt, plaster, fine wood and fabric we had seen in previous palaces, were here scaled up in size and doubled in quantity. Ludwig II had no restraint. (His story is quite interesting, though sad.)
The only picture we got inside, was while waiting in line for the English tour to start, before they told us "no pictures."
Tinnitus, the God of Cell Phones.
On the way back to the dock we saw some Bavarian Cows.
Bavarian Alps behind.
We caught a boat now to Fraueninsel. There are no cars on Fraueninsel, but there are beer gardens so it is quite popular.
Tower of Benedictine cloister.
Here we walked around and entered the church attached to the cloister. Two interesting things about this church were, first, the stone threshhold:
Convent founded 782; could it be that old?
The other thing was how the graves in the small cemetery were not merely decorated, but gardened.
It will be interesting to see if other German cemeteries are similar.
Mostly Fraueninsel seemed to be a place where people relaxed,
...and enjoyed the lake.
Something very noticeable here: hundreds of people wandering around on the grass and paths, but almost zero litter. No discarded wrappers or empty water bottles.
But it was really time to head back. We thought so, and so did several hundred other people who lined up for the boat.
The boat back to the shore, the 2km walk up to the railway station (the steam train departed just before our boat docked), the train ride back on an even more crowded train, the walk home: took almost 4 hours total from the time we finished our capuccinos and headed for the boat, until we walked into our hotel. But it was a very nice day, just the same.
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