SCHLOSS LINDERHOF Rainy day Friday, August 29, so we took the car and drove south to the Tyrolean Alps.  We are starting to scout out our route from Augsburg to Vienna. We first stopped at the beautiful little Schloss (castle) Linderhof .  This is where King Ludwig mainly hung out as most of his other palaces were never finished before his death.  The Schloss is quite small, with just 4 rooms (plus little servant’s waiting rooms on each corner) but it is still fabulous. First of all, the Schloss is situated in a Disneyesque (is there such a word???) setting.  In front of the palace is a large reflecting pond with a golden fountain of Venus and Cupid spewing enormous jets of water periodically.  On the other side of the pond is a huge “temple” dedicated to Venus.  This temple is surrounded by beautiful, colorful gardens set in geometric patterns.  The gardens are wonderful to look down upon as you mount the tiered staircases up to the rotunda which houses the Venus statue.  At each landing, before you start another tier of stairs, there are elaborate carvings and statuary of chubby cherubs and lovely ladies in various poses, and smaller fountains burbling happily. In back of the Schloss, viewed from the king’s bedchamber, is an enormous tiered water cascade.  Everything is beautifully landscaped with ferns and flowers. Inside the palace we entered into a rotunda with a double staircase of  Cararra marble, passing huge cloisoneed Chinese urns.  At the top of the stairs we entered into one of the corner servant’s waiting rooms, with elaborately decorated walls and ceiling.  Next was the obligatory throne room, which Ludwig seldom used, but had to have.  The golden rococo throne was situated on a small pedestal and faced a huge mirror, perhaps so the king could admire himself??  From the throne room, through another servant’s waiting room, to the king’s bedroom.  Don and I have decided that King Ludwig must have been the inventor of the king sized bed, because his bed in this palace is the biggest bed we have ever seen.  King L was 6’ 3”, so he did need a big bed.  His bedroom is the largest room in the palace, and his bed is set up on a platform.  From the bed he can see out the big windows to Neptune’s fountain and the cascading, tiered waterfall.  The bed is separated from any visitors by a carved railing similar to the ones at Versailles.  The bed is decorated in royal blue and surrounded by gold rococo.  Of course there are beautiful frescoes painted on the ceiling. After passing through another servant room you come to the dining room.  This room is set up to feed one, only and the table is rigged up on a pulley system so that it could be set and food placed on the table down below, and then hoisted up to the king’s dining room.  The king apparently was quite shy and never had guests here and spent much of his time in his fantasies. Next is the fabulous Hall of Mirrors, another tribute to the “Sun King”, Louis XIV.  White and gold rococo wall decorations, more beautiful paintings on the walls and ceiling. But, wait!  That is not all.  There is the Grotto.  Now, this is where the Disney people got a lot of their ideas, I am sure, because this entire thing could be placed right in Disneyland as an attraction.  King Ludwig had this grotto created to his specifications (what an imagination he had!) and the cave is dimly lit and made out of artificial rocks, with a huge pond in the center.  He would have his servants row him across the pond in a boat designed to look like a swan, and he would sit in his private box seat while Wagner operas were performed for him.  The grotto features include artificial wave action, a waterfall that could be slowed to a trickle or increased to a roar, and indirect colored lighting.  This was the first electrical lighting system in Bavaria and the dynamo engines which powered the waves and waterfalls were radical new inventions. Other outbuildings include a chapel, a Moorish cottage, the original hunting lodge, and various kiosks. Poor King Ludwig.  He was 200 years too late for Louis XIV and 100 years too early for Walt Disney.  They thought he was crazy, and in his 46th year the powers that were had him declared insane.  That very day he escaped to Munich and he and his doctor were both found drowned the next day.  Suicide or murder???  No one knows.