Information Board Translation
King of the mountains theme trail
Royal retreats in the mountains
King Max II of Bavaria was a passionate hiker and hunter. His wife, Queen Marie, was an enthusiastic mountaineer. They usually spent the summer months in the mountains, at Hohenschwangau Castle or in Berchtesgaden. Their children, Crown Prince Ludwig and his younger brother Prince Otto, were allowed to accompany their mother on her mountain tours. The family liked to retreat to the solitude of the mountains. The royal mountain lodges were not only used as excursion destinations, family celebrations were also held there in private. Ludwig was 18 years old when his father King Max II died on March 10, 1864. In the early years of his reign, Ludwig II often undertook spontaneous riding excursions into the mountains. A popular destination for these rides were his father's former hunting lodges on the Altlacher Hochkopf, the Herzogstand and in the Vorderriß. Just one year after his accession to the throne, Ludwig II acquired all of King Max II's hunting and hunting lodges in the high mountains from his estate. Even before Ludwig II appeared as a builder of magnificent castles, he transferred these houses to his ownership and had a new royal house built on the Herzogstand. The mountain houses became his first private retreats in the mountains.
Did you know that ...
... a fish-like monster supposedly lies in the depths of Lake Walchensee? It is said to hold its own tail in its maw and encircle the entire rocky cauldron of the lake with its huge body. When the beast lets go, the rock of the cauldron mountain splits. The lake water then floods the area all the way to Munich. This is why a holy mass used to be said every year in the crypt chapel of Munich's Frauenkirche. Afterwards, a consecrated ring was thrown into the lake to appease the monster. This is what you can read in the Munich travel handbook for the Bavarian highlands from 1874. At almost 190 meters, the Walchensee is actually one of the deepest Alpine lakes in Germany. It fills a tectonic depression and falls into the depths at an incline of 45 degrees in places. So it's no wonder that one or two legends have grown up around the Walchensee over the years.
Knowledge for children
In the Stone Age, people lived by hunting animals. This provided them with food, skins for clothing and bones for tools. Since people began to farm and breed animals, hunting is no longer vital. In the middle of the 19th century, at the time of Kings Max II and Ludwig II of Bavaria, hunting was a hobby of the nobility or wealthy people. As King Max II loved to go hunting in the mountains, he needed lodgings there. Such hunts often lasted several days and it was impossible to return home quickly in the evening. Traveling was very time-consuming in those days. King Ludwig II was not a hunter. He loved the peace and quiet of the mountains, enjoyed nature and went on hikes. Ludwig liked to live in his father's mountain huts and had some built himself, like here at the Herzogstand.