Thursday

Today we headed a few miles down the hill to enjoy the day at Chiemsee, a gorgeous lake community and home of King Ludwig’s Castle. The lake is very large and dotted with small islands. I imagine it must be great fun during the summer and offers all kinds of boating and other opportunities.

We boarded the ferry and began our Journey to Herren-Insel, the island where King Ludwig built a castle to honor the French by copying several rooms at Versailles.


Of the over 70 rooms at the castle, only 20 were completed before Ludwig’s death. The main rooms are incredibly opulent and ornate affairs. Alas, we were not allowed to take interior pictures, but I encourage you to look up the castle at http://www.herren-chiemsee.de/englisch/n_palace/index.htm. Strangely, none of the gorgeous and opulent rooms were ever used, nor were they ever intended to be used. Ludwig spent only ten days total in the palace and used his swimming pool sized tub only five times.


From Herren-Insel we headed to Frauen Insel on a 1926 side-wheeler.

As we approached the island sailboats were ghosting along in the light breeze. I would love to come back in later summer and spend a few days exploring the lake by Sailboat!

This small island is mostly a vacation island with quaint homes, restaurants, biergartens, and pottery shops. There is an interesting old church where Myra and I sat for some time enjoying the quiet.

Like many old churches here, the stone base of the doorway is cupped several inches from centuries of faithful feet walking across.

Nika cooked and excellent dinner for us at the Baurhoff and we ended the evening enjoying good beer and fellowship. Nika and I traded tunes on a guitar borrowed from Frau Moser. Nika has a rich alto voice and sang some wonderful Russian folk songs much to the delight of Frau Moser and the other guests gathered in the common room. It was a wonderful day!