Xplane11.34 The Disney Castle inspiration

[John_Cillis 2,406]

The inspiration for the Disney castles and real life location shots for the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a song me and my semi pro school touring choir would sing in concert when the movie was possible, and the song is on our first record album recorded in 1971 that I performed on, on the now defunct Astrolog record label.  But that album and two others paid for our tours which covered more  than ten thousand miles of the US and Canada.  This marvelous scenery can be found here and for final perspective I have included a shot from one of my several visits to this castle.  The forests are enhanced by Simheaven and the framerate is much better than the author predicted, even with autogen at its max...

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/50359-neuschwanstein-castle/

John

 

[bernd1151 5,855]

Great flight and the castle is really spot on!

[John_Cillis 2,406]

9 minutes ago, bernd1151 said:

Great flight and the castle is really spot on!

Thanks, I loved taking the tour inside the castle, which I did twice, in '77 and '87 (when the real life shot was taken, in '87).  In 87 on the way to Fussen I met up with two Australian girls, two sisters, and stayed with them on the tour of the castle, and on the train we took back to Munich.  We agreed to go to the Hofbrauhaus after I returned to my hotel and they returned to their hostel.  There they picked up a really cool Japanese young man, and the four of us had a great time. 

I knew they were on a tighter budget than I was because they were staying at a hostel, so I bought them and their Japanese friend each a Masskrug of beer, which is a lot of beer.  We stayed at the Hofbrauhaus for two hours, then they escorted me back to my excellently located hotel, the Hotel Stachus, which was between the main station and the main pedestrian zone of Munich.

It was booked for me by the great travel agencies one finds at the train stations throughout Europe.  I got a wonderful kiss on the cheek from the oldest Australian sister, they lived in Melbourne and I wrote them some months later, but lost contact with them (which was good, my ex wife was very jealous when she learned how close women near my age would get to me, but it is a good type of jealousy, my ex and I are good friends, she got me away from being too shy, since I never approached women except for my ex and the two Australian girls, or my female colleagues).

If you ever visit Munich, to get to the castle, you take the train to Fussen (you may have to connect but they may have direct service now), then the bus to the castle.  I have been to the castle several times, toured it twice, other times did not tour it due to the crowds.  The tour is in German, or at least it was when I was there the last time, but I am somewhat fluent in German and for the two Australian young ladies I translated what the guide was saying.  Obviously my judgement of Aussies is because of the impression the two young ladies made, and they were just that, ladies and brought the best gentleman and courtesy out in me.  Makes me laugh, same thing happened on a train from Grindelwald to Luzern with some South Korean young ladies I met in '84, who also wanted to kiss me on the cheek for some reason.  So my judgement of Koreans whether north or south is the same, they are most well mannered.

They wanted me to hang out with them in Zurich but were sad to learn I was with a tour group in Luzern, I could have done that but I wanted to also share time with my tour mates at a Swiss Fokelore show I promised I'd see with them.   I am one of those rare German speakers who can understand most dialects of German, including Swiss German, Bavarian German, Tyrolean German and the standard "Hoch Deutsch" or High German, equivalent to the English I learned by being raised by Chicagoans, what my Mom called "The King's English"...

John