Sights to see: Oberammergau

When I booked my Royal Castle tour, I had completely forgotten the one sentence in the description that mentioned something about a “short stop in Oberammergau.” It was a fun bonus to the trip! This stop took place between visiting Linderhof and Neuschwanstein. I had personally never heard of it, but both my parents responded as “Oh, Oberammergau, where the play is.” Perhaps it’s better known in Europe?

The theater where the Passion Play is held

About this play… I won’t go into the whole story, you can find that here. The cliff notes version is that a disease ravaged the town, causing the townsfolk to pledge to perform a grand play every 10 years if more lives were spared. As soon as they did this, no further people died. It’s a miracle! (Anyone else hear the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt theme song whenever they read that phrase?) The town stuck to its word and performs an epic play every 10 years, which involves nearly half the town’s population, requires its men to grow amazing beards as a means of costuming, and runs for several months. I was told the next one is in 2020; does anyone want to head back to Munich?

A great example of Lüftlmalerei

A couple other things caught my eye in this town, besides the theater. Many of the building are covered in gorgeous murals called Lüftlmalerei. Many of them feature fairy tale scenes and one of my favorites was Little Red Riding Hood.

All these decorations are painted on!

The town itself is straight out of a story book. Gorgeous decorations are everywhere, and the streets are literally cobbled.

 

Fun fact: "Oberammergau" means "over the Ammer River"

Streets so pretty that I took a picture

The town also has a sense of being protected. Visible from almost everywhere in the main town is a tall mountain face, almost as if it was looking out for the town.

This mountain is called the Kofel. See if you can spot it in one of the earlier pictures too!

This brings me to the end of my tour recap! I’m so glad I made the time to go on this tour before my class began and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in seeing Neuschwanstein.