A few days ago, Leanne Cole wrote a post on the old gold mining town Walhalla in Victoria, Australia. That post reminded me to a trip I made. A few years ago I was in Bavaria for a short vacation. By incident I came along a historical place called Walhalla.
The name Walhalla is derived for the nordic sagas (mythology) and means hall of the fame (literally the place where the heroes or warriors, who died in a fight, will meet their war-god Odin in Asgard – kind of paradise of the vikings) . The building looks like an ancient greek temple and is located on a hill about the river Danube. It was built by King Ludwig I, the father of the famous Bavarian King Ludwig II, who build Castle Neuschwanstein. The cconstruction took place between 1830 and 1842. Inside you can find many busts of famous personalities in German history – politicians, sovereigns, scientists and artists. You can find i.e. busts of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Ludwig van Beethoven, Albrecht Dürer, Nicolaus Kopernicus, Johannes Keppler, Peter Paul Rubens, Georg-Friedrich Haendel, Immanuel Kant, Wolfgang-Amadeus Mozart, Richard Wagner, Martin Luther, Friedrich Gauss, Sophie Scholl, Edith Stein, Johannes Brams, Georg Mendel, Albert Einstein, Richard Strauß, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and many more. The common feature for all of these is, that they all were speaking German. The memorial displays some 65 plaques and 130 busts of persons, covering 2,000 years of history – the earliest person honored is Arminius, victor at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9 AD) and the man, who is said to be the man who cast out the roman army from the area east to the river Rhine. Some of the busts are imaginary, because they show people, who were passed away decades or even centuries ago and no-one really knows, how they looked like. Wikipedia lists all of them, each one with her own page to describe, why they are important. For my selection, I picked people, I assumed you might already know them.
Even today, every now and then a new bust or plaque is accommodated in Walhalla.
Walhalla also has their own site in the web. You can find it here. The site also has an english section.
As you can see, we had very bad luck for our visit. Although it was that foggy, we stopped and had a look. We left the motorway and headed uphill. It’s a very huge building. Because of the size, it’s nearly impossible to take some photos. Taking photographs inside was forbidden, so I can only show a few photos from outside.
There is no parking ground at the river. So, you need much time, to walk over the river from the small town at the foot of the hill at the end of the bridge. I needed nearly an hour for the few photos because of the distances, while my wife waited in the car for me to come back. Because of the lack of a parking ground I jumped off the car to shorten the distance and she drove to a parking ground. When I was ready, taking photos, I called her at her mobile to pick me up.
Nevertheless, in case, I’m in that region again, I’d visit Walhalla again (hopefully with better weather).
Take care!
MyBlog - solaner 