Horse-drawn carriages and soaring castles await.
There I was, a cynical New Yorker, riding in the back of an elegant (albeit motorized) carriage, effortlessly being pulled by a sleek, regal horse. As the horse trotted forward, shaking its luscious mane, my carriage rounded a corner to reveal a scene a far cry from the shuffling streets of jam-packed Manhattan: a stunning, multi-tiered, 19th-century castle with soaring towers rising high above the surrounding Alpine forests. Forests where I imagined Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbed, Little Red Riding Hood wandered, and Snow White stumbled into the Seven Dwarves cottage.
It was day four of my trip to Germany’s Bavaria region when it hit me: I had stepped into a scene straight out of a fairy tale. The view was one of those “pinch-me” travel moments—reconciling the surrealness of what you’re experiencing with who you are. I’ve experienced such moments throughout my travels—on a riverboat in Borneo, on a camel’s back in the Sahara Desert, walking alongside the Masai in Kenya—and each time, my inner voice seemed to ask incredulously: what are you doing here? As if I had taken a wrong turn on my way to pick up a latte from my local bodega. This time, the surrealness of the moment felt as if it had been lifted from the pages of a Hans Christian Andersen story. I looked up at that castle and imagined the throne room where an imperious nude emperor might have convinced his adoring subjects to admire his “new clothes.” I gazed up at those turrets and pictured a fussy princess sleeping atop 100 mattresses, still complaining about a bothersome pea.
Continue Reading Article After Our Video
Recommended Fodor’s Video
As my carriage approached those soaring royal gates, I knew the answer to what I was doing here in Germany: I was living out my fairy-tale fantasies.
A Horse-Drawn Carriage Ride Through Rottach-Egern
I had arrived in Rottach-Egern, Germany, to check into the Althoff Seehotel Überfahrt, resting on the shores of Lake Tegernsee, a popular resort town described by locals as being “Germany’s answer to New York’s Hamptons.” While the comparison between New York’s Hamptons and the shores of Lake Tegernsee ended at the designer stores hawking overpriced sunglasses, the town itself looked like an illustration pulled from a storybook. The main street was lined with colorful alpine chalets that housed everything from beauty stores to boutiques selling dirndls, dresses traditionally worn by women and girls across Bavaria, Austria, Switzerland, and beyond.
As I meandered along the main street, I imagined the opening song of Beauty and the Beast, where the baker, the grocer, and the woman shaking out her laundry all sing “bonjour, bonjour, bonjour!” in unison. Sure, I know the fairy tale of a provincial girl falling in love with a prince-turned-beast takes place in the French countryside, but walking around Lake Tegernsee, I could picture the locals singing “hallo, hallo, hallo!” in their dirndls, throwing open the wooden shutters of those alpine chalets and bursting into song. In New York, where the closest one comes to a fairytale-like musical is a flash dance in Grand Central, it’s lovely to picture a version of reality where the day begins with smiles, tunes, and the colorful homes of a bucolic town versus Starbucks lines, honking cabs, and impenetrable towers of metal and steel.
For such a whimsical place, one, of course, requires an equally magical stay, a stay that, at least for this New Yorker’s fantasy, is befitting of a princess. The Althoff Seehotel Überfahrt is a five-star hotel with 53 suites and 123 rooms facing the glimmering waters of Lake Tegernsee. A stay at the Überfahrt felt like I’d arrived at a summer home belonging to a royal friend. Rooms with balconies looked out on Lake Tegernsee and the Alps beyond, while the interior design blended wooden accents with luscious fabrics and thoughtful details, like a bathtub with a “starry sky” comprised of Swarovski crystals—a far cry from the dubiously clean bathtubs in a standard pre-war New York apartment.
Combining modern luxuries that the likes of Belle would have killed for (think highspeed Wi-Fi and an ecologically sustainable heating and cooling system) paired with traditional German fare, my stay at the Althoff Seehotel Überfahrt included endless glasses of champagne, walking along the shores of Lake Tegernsee on quiet afternoons, and exploring nearby Rottach-Egern by horse-drawn carriage. As my carriage rolled along quiet country lanes, passing sprawling fields and the occasional amused local out walking their dog, it was just the beginning of my fairy tale treatment.
Stepping Inside the ‘Mad King’s’ Castle
King Ludwig II was a reclusive monarch who shrugged off the expectations of marriage to escape into a fantastical world of his own making. Neuschwanstein Castle was Ludwig’s most famous legacy, an ode to the magic and beauty he revered and strived to surround himself with. Having seen my fair share of crumbling European castles, nothing compares to the beauty of Neuschwanstein with its 19th-century Romanesque Revival architecture and glistening towers—it’s no wonder that Walt Disney drew inspiration from Neuschwanstein when he visited in the 1950s, using the castle’s design as the basis for Disney’s Cinderella Castle.
The castle was largely inspired by Ludwig’s love of Wagnerian Operas. King Ludwig II was said to have shared a profound relationship with Richard Wagner, pulling inspiration from his music, which is reflected throughout the design and décor of Neuschwanstein Castle. I tried to imagine what a castle born from my own musical tastes would look like—an embarrassingly eclectic mix of sequined costumes and friendship bracelets (a not-so-subtle nod to Taylor Swift’s music) with a homage to my love of classic jazz vocalists such as Etta James, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, and Julie London. How would that even translate to a castle? The best I could come up with was a combination of Millennial nostalgia in the form of inflatable furniture and girly accents paired with a classic New York jazz haunt comprised of fedora hats, cocktails, and cigar smoke. In other words, a Limited Too store meets New York’s Village Vanguard in castle form.
As I contemplated my own musically-inspired castle, I checked into the four-star AMERON Neuschwanstein Alpsee Resort & Spa, which sits right next door to Neuschwanstein. While travelers can’t stay inside the historic Neuschwanstein, the AMERON might be the next best thing as it sits nestled in the bosom of two royal castles—Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein—as well as the Museum of the Bavarian Kings.
Peeling back my room’s curtains and spotting the historic castles rising above left me feeling like Anne Hathaway in Princess Diaries, looking out her airplane window as she arrived at her new home in the fictional land of Genovia.
“Princess, look out the window,” her trusty driver/advisor/spiritual guide encouraged her, “and welcome to Genovia.”
Hohenschwangau was built by King Maximilian II of Bavaria and was the childhood home of King Ludwig II, who went on to build Neuschwanstein Castle on the neighboring mountaintop. The style of Hohenschwangau is much less whimsical than Neuschwanstein, looking more like an oppressive yellow fortress sitting squat on a hilltop. If we’re sticking to the fairy tale motif here, for this New Yorker, Hohenschwangau is the ugly stepsister to Neuschwanstein, but a character worth knowing nonetheless, if not for its unbeatable views of the neighboring Neuschwanstein soaring above the treetops.
From Hohenschwangau, it’s a quick stroll to the foot of Neuschwanstein, where motorized horse-drawn carriages await. Inside Neuschwanstein, I found myself ogling frescoes inspired by German mythology, stained glass windows, ornate woodwork, and even an indoor grotto. Inspired by yet more music—this time, Wagner’s opera, Tannhäuser—King Ludwig II constructed an artificial stone grotto inside his castle, with rock walls and artificial stalactites mimicking a natural cave.
What would the princess in me do with such ample space, I wondered? While I wouldn’t necessarily dedicate a wing of my castle to mimicking a cave, I’d like to imagine I’d reconstruct a Sephora store in one wing and my favorite local coffee shop in another. In other words, my fairy tale would be bringing the best of my New York neighborhood indoors and placing it feet away from my bed since my interpretation of royalty is convenience.
Checking Into Your Very Own Historic Castle
Throughout my Bavaria trip, I had stepped into royal abodes, ridden my fair share of horse-drawn carriages, and eaten like a princess, but I had yet to actually make my royal transformation. That was until I checked into the Althoff Grandhotel Schloss Bensberg. The bones of this 5-star hotel were once the Schloss Bensberg, constructed as a hunting palace by Prince-Elector Johann Wilhelm II of Duesseldorf for his wife Maria-Luisa of the Medici family. Today, the Schloss Bensberg is one of Germany’s largest Baroque palaces in the Cologne countryside, and about as royal a hotel stay as one can dream.
The castle wings wrap around a regal outside courtyard, sitting atop a hill facing the city of Cologne beyond. From the rooms where thick velvet curtains frame large bay windows, I imagined another era entirely: looking out at the courtyard and picturing well-heeled nobles gossiping as ladies in elegant dresses fanned themselves against the summer heat.
I had lost myself to the royalty of Bavaria—with its awe-inspiring castles and storied past bringing me one step away from throwing on a floor-length gown and roaming the hallways of Schloss Bensberg as if searching for my ladies in waiting. Before I could let the royal treatment get to my head, it was time to swap castles for my New York apartment, leaving my imaginary tiara behind in a fairytale land.
