Insight Guides Pocket Munich & Bavaria by Insight Guides

Author:Insight Guides
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, Germany
Publisher: Apa Publications
Published: 2017-12-13T05:00:00+00:00

Oberammergau

Apa

Oberammergau and Linderhof

To reach the second of Ludwig’s dream castles, take the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Autobahn from Munich, turning off west to Ettal. This lovely Benedictine monastery is set in a gently curving valley. Stop and admire Johann Jakob Zeiller’s 18th-century fresco of the life of St Benedict. Continue from there to Oberammergau ‡ [map], setting for the world-famous 10-yearly Passion Play, inaugurated in the plague year of 1633 and still performed by local people. The Passion Play Theatre, where the epic is staged, can be visited on guided tours. In the town are preserved some very attractive 18th-century facades, adorned with paintings by the so-called Lüftlmaler (air painter), Franz Zwinck.

A short ride (or pleasant 12km/7.5 mile hike) west of Oberammergau, Ludwig’s favourite castle, remote little Linderhof (Apr–mid-Oct daily 9am–6pm, mid-Oct–Mar 10am–4pm; www.schlosslinderhof.de; charge), was the embodiment of his baroque fantasies. The palace, inspired by Versailles, is opulent inside and out. Quite apart from the carefully tailored landscape of pond and park, you could be excused for thinking that the whole romantic Alpine backdrop had been created from Ludwig’s imagination. Only the Venus Grotto, carved out of the mountainside and forming another Wagnerian motif from Tannhäuser, is in fact man-made.

Oberammergau is one hour 50 minutes by train from Munich Hauptbahnhof with a change in Murnau. Regular local buses link Oberammergau with Linderhof and Ettal.

The Bavarian Alps

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