| This is my journal of the inaugural Pilkguns Shooting Tour of Germany, which took place 5-14 OCT 2001. The tour was organized by Scott and Rhonda Pilkington of Pilkington Competition Equipment, LLC in Monteagle, TN. Scott had been wanting to do an activity like this for several years and was able to pull it together because of the various contacts he had formed in Germany. The tour was announced initially in mid-February on Target Talk, the internet BBS Pilkguns operates, and I included it on my email list as well. Surprisingly, one member of the tour did not have net access and heard about it at the Crosman Gran Prix. The final group consisted of 25 people, including all four members of the Pilkington family. There was one couple who withdrew from the tour as a result of the September terrorist attacks. Rifle shooters were in the majority for the group (of those that were shooters) and I am one of those so I’ll likely be slanted more to the rifle side of things. I should note the itenerary was not biased toward either discipline, and neither were the plant tours. So come along and enjoy yourselves on a shooter's dream vacation! |
| Merrie and I awoke at 0430 Friday morning and drove to the Indianapolis airport. I had arranged to get an earlier flight than planned since I was concerned about the short layover in Detroit to get our connecting flight to Newark. The original flight from Detroit direct to Amsterdam had been cancelled. Once we arrived, we were offered an even earlier flight that was about to leave so we decided to wait around in the Detroit airport rather than at home. Security for us was a breeze; the lines were not long and they were hand scanning about every third person so it was only about 15 minutes in line. We learned later we were probably one of the luckiest ones as some in the group had to endure having every piece of luggage searched and lines miles long. The flight was packed but short so we arrived about 0725 local time. We ate a light breakfast and then sat around the gate reading books. About an hour before the flight, they hadn't updated the gate display yet so we checked the departure board and discovered our gate had been changed. We were still the first of Target Talk group that was meeting in Detroit to make it to the gate, but most of the others arrived soon afterward. We were concerned because we were missing one person that was supposed to meet us there so were we hoping she had made arrangements to Newark somehow. The flight to Newark was also nearly full. As we landed, people crowded over to the east side of the plane to try to see the "new" Manhattan skyline. I'm not sure how much you could see since we were on the other side. We were still missing the 12th person for our portion of the group as we boarded the KLM flight for Amsterdam. We had to wait a short while on the ground because we would arrive before 0600, violating a noise ordinance. After our takeoff toward the south that we circled back over NJ to head north so then I could see Manhattan and the empty space where the WTC once stood. It was too far away and hazy to see much clearly. I was also surprised to see commercial jets flying up the Hudson like they always have. |
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| It was a nice, long flight of 7 and a half hours. When a program wasn't showing on the screens, they would display the flight map and statistics. We landed just after 0600. The Schiphol airport terminal is the nicest and cleanest I've ever seen. It seemed almost deserted, which I assume was because of the early hour, so we zipped right through the customs line for our passport stamps. We made our way to the gate where the group that had flown out of Minneapolis was already waiting. Fortunately our 12th person had managed to join up with them so we were all together now except for the 3 people meeting up with us in Munich. |
We landed in Munich at 0920 and it was a bit chilly and overcast.
Those who had brought firearms with them had to go through customs,
which basically involved proving the serial numbers matched up with
those on the form that Scott had faxed ahead. Our "guide", Annette 'Netty'
von Weech, and our driver, Lothar Straßberger, were waiting for us with
a tour bus. Because the airport was so far north of the city and our
hotel for the night was even further north, we departed straight for the
Oktoberfest to maximize our time there since it was the last day of
shooting. We exchanged $100 for DM on the bus (Netty had gone to the
bank and made up envelopes for each of us) so we would have some
spending money. The southbound traffic was fairly heavy with people
travelling to the Alps and it took a while to maneuver into and around
Munich because of traffic and construction. We drove right past the
Olympic Stadium. We learned very quickly that our driver was a pro as he
deftly took the bus within inches of cars and buildings. We finally got
to the south side of what I would call a fairgrounds, which looked about
a square mile in size, to the bus parking area. We walked to the
Bavarian Shooting Federation "tent",
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was basically a real building and more appropriately named a "beer hall"
IMHO with lots of eating, drinking, singing and smoking. The food was
great; I had some beer sausage and Merrie had a pork plate and we shared
a huge pretzel, which was a very popular item there (after the beer, of
course). I didn't want to partake of beer yet since I was likely
dehydrated as it was from the flight so I had coke with lemon and orange
juices in it – quite tasty and I had three of them. No wonder something
similar has been introduced to the US now! The sun broke out shortly
after we arrived and it warmed up into the 70s so it was very pleasant
walking around and taking in the sights of the festival. It did seem
like a state fair sort of atmosphere with lots of vendors, game booths
and rides.
However, the large amount of beer makes it a bit livelier and the
attendees are more varied with young and old alike in their traditional
dress. Unlike our fairs though, they had some major roller coaster rides
that seemed permanent and many of their smaller rides were much more
thrilling than what we have here.
I was surprised how cheap http://www.pilkguns.com/2001germanytour/tn_ were; while the major rides were $4-5,
I purchased a T-shirt for $7 and 2 shirts for our boys for less than $3
each. Back at the "tent" we were in they had 90 air rifle and 25 air
pistol firing points available, but the range was not too busy while we
were there since it was the last day of shooting (shooting isn't allowed
on Sundays officially). Several members of our group did elect to
participate in some of the contests for an entry fee of 30 DM (~$14).
One of our group fired the very last shot of the Oktoberfest and was
presented a special award for this feat. They had several different
match formats you could shoot, which I didn't understand, but the normal
40 shot match for air rifle was led by Debevec, Horneber and
Pfeilschifter with perfect scores in the master class. The whole
Oktoberfest experience was quite thrilling to me, but I think it caught
most of by surprise when the entire hall sang along to several American
songs as well, including John Denver's "Country Road". We left at 1700
for the guest house, which was back near the airport. It turned out the
hotel,
Gastof Nagerl in Marzling, had its own 22-point 10m range though we
didn’t shoot on it. As we later learned, it’s quite popular to have
ranges within guest houses or restaurants. It turns out this one was
only 13 years old, but it kept the traditional architecture of its
small, quaint village of a few hundred people. You'll note in the
picture the blue and white pole that indicates for what crafts and
services the village was known. The food and beer was excellent. We
quickly learned not to order just water though as they prefer to drink
carbonated spring water. You had to specify you wanted water "without
gas". |
| We got up late so we could adjust to the time better and had
breakfast. This was unusual to me at least because it mainly consisted
of rolls and bread with "lunch meat" and cheeses. They also had some
fruit and boiled eggs. We left at 1000 for Oberschließheim to see a
castle and the neighboring Luftwaffe airfield and aviation museum. This
is not your stereotypical castle from the outside but has a visually
stunning interior. There aren't any spires, parapets, drawbridges or the
like, but appears to be simply a large, stately mansion, intended to
imitate the palace at Versailles.
Since it was heavily damaged during WWII, it had been closed for 10 years for renovations and had recently reopened. They were able to faithfully reproduce the original look because of the extensive photographs taken by the Third Reich of the important cultural items and landmarks. The castle was built (1701-1726) during the Baroque period and featured ceiling murals, paintings, the second largest marble staircase in Germany, and very intricate and exquisite stucco/plaster ornamentation. |
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We ate lunch at the Poseidon Greek restaurant in the village. This
was the restaurant where the idea of a tour first came about on one of
Scott's trips to Germany. I had a lamb filet and apple beer. Even Merrie,
who doesn't like lamb at all, thought it was really good. The air museum
was a history of the airfield, which was the oldest in Germany, as well
as German military,
experimental and specialty aviation. They had some interesting STOL/VTOL
aircraft; the one in the picture has 4 engines oriented vertically in
each wingtip pod. We left in light rain and traveled about 120km north
to Allersberg where we stayed at Gastehaus Sperling.
 Allersberg
is a small town with buildings dating back to the 14th century.
Residential area is very compact with narrow, winding roads. The houses
and lawns were very well-kept. It struck us odd that there were no "for
sale" signs anywhere. The land is so precious that homes are spoken for
in advance. We learned that evening that the "War on Terrorism" had
begun. |
Breakfast was at 0700 and was very similar to the first morning
except we learned soft boiled eggs are far more common than the hard
boiled ones we got the day before. We left for the RWS plant at 0745. It
was about a 30km drive to Furth. The Engineering Manager, Hubertus
Dowidat, gave us a tour of the facility, which covers 35 hectares.
Unfortunately, we were not allowed to use cameras inside the facility.
They have an apprentice program for their machine techs and engineers
that involves 2 years in the machine shop and a year and a half in other
departments. They take an exam at the end of their time covering all 3
and a half years. Their pay ranges from 1000DM/month to begin with to
1400DM near the end. While most techs and engineers are men, the
majority of production personnel are women. RWS has indoor proof ranges
of up to 500m to insure their ammo is safe and accurate.
They have a separate 50m test range that includes a freeze chamber to
-21C for biathlon for their top grades of rimfire. We then saw their
shotshell process, which at one time included a shot tower but they
purchase the shot they use now. They start with unprimed cases from
Fiocchi or other European suppliers and add their own primer. All
components are kept in separate locations and fed through the floor to
the machines below. The powder room is anti-static and only small
quantities are kept in the feeders or transported at a time. Downstairs
they have 1 high-speed loader with 10 stations and 8 loaders from Vasini,
the only European supplier of shotgun loading equipment. They run lots
of 120000 rounds, which is usually 1 day of 3 shifts. It takes nearly a
day to setup a machine to run a different load. Next we saw some rimfire
manufacture but visitors aren't allowed to see R50/R100 production (or
pellets). They were producing Target Rifle while we were there. The
priming compound is a green liquid that is poured into the cases, which
are shaken until it solidifies into a "pill", which then gets pressed so
it squeezes out into the rim. The cases then run through a sorter
machine to load them into pallets for the powder/bullet loader. It was
too difficult to hear specifics, but the bullets get formed from a long
coil of lead wire. They can make 25000 bullets from one wire and this
constitutes a lot for R50, but the lower grades have a lot size of 4-5
times that so the bullets are not from the same wire. After being loaded
they are lubed by passing pallets through a trough of hot "wax" for
about a minute. Then it routes over to the packaging machine where they
are placed into the plastic tray and passed over a mirror for a visual
inspection before being placed into the carton. We then saw some
centerfire cases being made (they manufacture 43 different centerfire
cases), from the initial brass strip rolls through several drawing
operations and then turning the belts/rims, primer pockets, etc to
machines that checked min/max on critical dimensions. They make all the
components except for the powder. Some http://www.pilkguns.com/2001germanytour/tn_ I found interesting are
that they are not so safety conscious as the US as they don't require
safety glasses or hearing protection on the production floor. It was
also peculiar to me to see smoking and drinking (including beer) on the
floor.
Then we left to tour nearby Nurnberg. We saw the Palace Of Justice where the famous trials were held and the original walled city, some of which dated to the 11th century. We passed by a Jewish cemetery that was very plain and drab and then went to a Catholic cemetery that was quite colorful; it was interesting how the different faiths remembered their dead. It was also unusual to me that they recycle their burial plots because land is so scarce. A family rents a stone for at least 30 years, but at some time they remove the "body" to a "bone house" in the corner of the cemetary and another family can rent that stone. The building in the right picture to the left of the tower is part of a children's home today; the ceiling heights are too low to house today's adults. |
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| We also visited St. Sebald's Church where a large, ornate grave in the front holds Sebaldus, an 11th century Christian missionary. We then went to the market square to do some shopping and make a wish on the gold ring of the Beautiful Fountain. It started to rain but it was soon time to leave. That evening we had dinner and shot at the club RWS sponsors. Germany has 12000 clubs and 1.4 million members in the shooting federations. This club had 600 members and most were not RWS employees. It had 10 50m points with carriers and 16 10m points. Michael Moritz was a former national air rifle champion and the current coach for the adults. Unfortunately, it is normally closed Mondays so there were few people and we were not able to borrow equipment so only those who had brought their own could shoot. We also had some trouble getting rimfire ammo from RWS because of some misunderstandings I guess. We all had a great time though and the food and beer was very good. We had an excellent spicy goulash that was popular in the area. |
We awoke to a beautiful day. After breakfast we traveled
about an hour and a half, arriving at Rothenburg at 1000. We walked into
the town to the market square to meet the tour guide.
A fountain with a statue of St. George slaying a dragon is in the
southwest corner of the square. Over 40 fountains were built to ensure
the water supply since the city was built on a plateau above the Tauber
River. The St. George fountain is the largest at 8 meters deep; it's
decorations date to 1608. The original portion of the town hall was
built in 1250-1400 with additional parts being added in the late 1500s.
Next to the town hall is one of the most famous buildings, the City
Councilors' Tavern.
When the Catholics overtook the Protestant town in 1631, the Catholic
general promised to spare the town if a councilor could empty a 3.25
liter tankard of wine in one draught. The mayor of the town was able to
accomplish this feat and save his town. The windows next to the clock
open on certain hours to display the feat of the "Master Draught". The
town was geared for tourists since it was "authentic-looking" with a
complete wall around the city, cobblestone streets, authentic
architecture design and large church in the middle.
Even modern conveniences like McDonalds had to blend into the scenery as
you can see in the picture on the right. St. Jacob's Church was the
centerpiece of the town and because most people couldn't read or write,
they had to use images to convey meanings, which is why the statue of
Jesus has grapes coming from his wounds rather than blood.
The church was the largest of its time and took over 170 years to
complete with construction starting in 1311 and being consecrated in
1485. The city became one of the largest in the Roman Empire after King
Konrad III erected his castle in 1142. Unfortunately, his 2 sons died
young so the castle itself didn't retain much importance but it became
the foundation for the city.
When an earthquake destroyed most of the castle in 1365, the ruins were
used to build much of the defense wall around the city. All that remains
of the castle is its front gate. You can see in the picture where the
drawbridge chains used to pass and the mask from whose mouth hot pitch
was poured onto attackers. I ate roast venison for lunch at the Golden
Griffin (next to McDonald's) and then we got to window shop for a while.
We left at 1400 for Oberndorf. The scenery is similar to some parts of
the US with lush fields intermixed with stands of woods on rolling
hills. The only difference to me was the density of villages and the
prominence of the churches, their steeples looking like peaks rising
above the plains of the villages skyline. I even saw a covered bridge,
which is big thing where we live. We checked into our guest houses (one
couldn't hold us all) at Oberndorf and then went to Schutzengesellschaft
Oberndorf, one of the oldest clubs in Germany (formed in 1558). Their
current building was only 104 years old but it had a great view of the
town from its tower. They were not too big of a club but had a nice
space saving design, which included points at 10, 25, 50 and 100m with
carriers at 10 and 50m. We ate a traditional local dinner – fried
spaetzel in a broth, potato salad and what I would liken to a wurst
streudel – and then shot against their members. Of course, we lost
(something about shooting after beer and a full meal – go figure) but it
was great fun. Even Merrie took a few shots (her first ever!) with a
borrowed FWB300 air rifle and kept them all in the black. They had an
awards ceremony afterwards and their president, Uwe Richter, presented
local gifts to the top 3 air rifle and air pistol competitors from our
group. |
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| The front door to their club. | The range view from their tower. If you look closely you can see the 1 25m airgun point on the right (the 2 100m points shoot underneath it) and the 25m smallbore range is beyond the 50m points (the 100m points run alongside it). | The view of Oberndorf from their tower. The long row of building in the middle of the picture is the Mauser factory. | Herr Richter presenting the awards. |
| The guest house we were in had some "normal" items for breakfast along with the traditional rolls with meat and cheese. We toured Feinwerkbau at 0900. FWB started in 1948 with non-firearm items and began producing air rifles in 1958 and air pistols in 1965. It is still a family owned business that has 165 employees. | ||||
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| Reiner Altenburger, son of one of the founders, was the
one who greeted us at the plant. It was surprising to me how much work
is still done by hand even though they do have many CNC machines. They
produce approximately 60 air rifles and 25 air pistols per day. They
didn't show us smallbore rifle production but did mention they hammer
forge the barrels and some of the processes they go through are
contracted out. Their airgun barrels are purchased though they wouldn't
reveal the supplier. All barrels are checked for straightness and
adjusted by hand as necessary. The wood stocks are also contracted out,
but they mill their own aluminum stocks. Many of the milled parts are
then vibrated in large hoppers with pyramidal polishing rocks to remove
the sharp edges. The air cylinders are machined from a solid piece of
aluminum alloy and are tested to 300 bar. We found out later that they
are one of just a few in Germany who are licensed to make pressure
cylinders. They do have some parts cast like sights and they also still
do some prototype work for outside businesses like Bosch and Mercedes.
Most of us got to shoot some of the air rifles on their test range where
they do a final adjustment of the velocity. FWB was similar to RWS in
that there was smoking and drinking on the production floor and it was
uncommon to see eye/ear protection in use.
We left at 1100 for Hohenzollern Castle near Hechingen. This was more
like a castle than the first one we saw.
We stopped at ahg-Anschutz, which is run by Dieter's son, Uwe. Even though they are not really a showroom setup (similar to Champion's Choice), many of us were like kids in a candy store, pouring over the brochures, catalogs, and the displays they did have out. The store really isn't very big but sure makes you drool if you're a rifle shooter. We couldn't stay too long since they had already officially closed by the time we arrived. Several people spent a fair amount of money. I purchased a few items for my team that weren't available in the US yet. We then drove on to our hotel and went to a club in Burlafingen for dinner. It had 200 members and was founded in 1952. It had a newer building built in 1990 so it was really nice with 19 10m (plus a silhouette), 4 25m airgun (for what?), 2 25m rapid fire bays, 6 50m and 2 100m. The restaurant there was very nice as well. It was fairly late so we didn't shoot but came back the following night for a competition.
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morning we toured the Anschutz factory, which was founded in 1856. Even
though their facilities are larger than FWB, they only have 155
employees. They have indoor ranges for 10, 50 and 100m including a
freeze box for biathlon. In fact, the Russian national biathlon team was
their testing rifles.
They manufacturer nearly everything they need, including some of the
machines and their own dies for pressed and stamped parts. Oddly, they
purchase the air cylinders from outside (tested to 300bar) rather than
get the certification to build them. Barrel steel comes from Belgium.
The barrels are air-gauged to .001mm and are straightened by hand.
Hunting barrels are choked by lapping while match barrels are choked by
the profile. Stainless .22 barrels are very hard to work so they have a
pretty high scrap rate. |
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| Critical parts are 100% inspected since the government
inspects every rifle. An interesting thing I learned was the threads for
the sight adjustment screws are rolled onto the bolt rather than
machined because it's more precise. Stocks are made outside and they
have found in their experience that cast is stronger than milled because
of the heat treating and no machining stress (though I still don't agree
with that). They fire for accuracy as a barreled action first and fix it
if possible if it doesn't meet specs and then put it into the stock and
fire again to verify. The test targets you get with the rifle are from
the first firing. They do 4 groups from 2 lots of one brand and 4 groups
from 2 lots of another, usually Eley and RWS though they have pretty
much any match ammo available to test. They do hold back the best rifles
for the top shooters who come in. They also chronograph the air rifles
in addition to doing groups. They make about 2500 rifles a month with 2
shifts in most areas. I noted I didn't see any beer on the floor or in
the café either as I had at RWS and FWB.
We then went into downtown Ulm to the Walther factory. Ulm has many parts that could pass for an American city in terms of architecture, including where our hotel was. Walther was founded in 1889 and has 130 employees. It was in what looked like a normal office building from the outside. It was 8 stories and fairly compact with a fair amount of product movement taking place between floors. They test their defense pistols to 5 shots at 25m within about 4" and their match rifles with 10 shots at 50m within 16mm (and they normally use R100 for that though they mentioned they get a rare flier). Their smallbore barrels are glued and then pinned. It takes 300C to break the seal. Pistol barrel blanks start at least 2" in diameter and get turned in several operations. Aside from the defense and sport pistol barrels, they purchase the airgun and smallbore rifle barrels from Lothar Walther. |
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| Pistols meant for police use must go through 20000
rounds without a significant amount of wear or malfunction while
consumer pistols go through half that. They take a sample of 5 pistols
every 3 months to determine these standards. We learned the F within the
pentagon you see stamped on the airguns is the government stamp to show
it is safe to sell to 18 year olds who are not in a club. It means the
airgun shoots at less than 175m/s. The airguns must shoot within 1m/s
during the test groups and must group within 6.5mm for air rifle and
7.5mm for air pistol for them to approve it. They first test just the
barrel, then they test again with the sleeve in placed but not glued,
and then they glue the sleeve and put it into a stock to test again.
They also purchase their air cylinders from outside though their's are
thicker and are tested to 450bar. They make about 6000 air rifles a
year. They sold 50000 P99 handguns in the US consumer market last year.
I didn't see any beer in their plant either.
We then walked around Ulm for a while, first going to Ulmer Meunster
and then window shopping and looking for presents. |
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| It was very foggy driving back to Munich the next morning, but it had burned off by the time we arrived 2 hours later. We stopped at Herr Kustermann's house which doubles as their factory for those who wanted to get fitted for clothing. They were very gracious and have a beautiful house, including a small outdoor pool. As we passed through a suburb on the west side, I noticed we passed by a huge cemetery set in a forest (or perhaps the forest grew up within the cemetery) that would rival the largest in the US (we have the third largest in Indianapolis and this was definitely larger). Then it was off to the Olympic ranges and the hotel right there between the 10m and 50m halls. It had 44 guestrooms (and used real keys) and the bottom floor also housed the Bavarian Shooting Federation offices as well as the doping and equipment control areas for competitions. 100 50m points with about 40 that can go to 300m and 100 10m points. | |||
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| It was built in the days before quotas so they had a
larger number of shooters to accommodate. We didn't get to see the 25m
or finals halls because Ralf Horneber was busy with a coaching class. It
was disappointing there was more trouble getting ammo and no opportunity
to get some coaching ourselves. I found the design and appearance of the
ranges more impressive than Atlanta. While they have done a lot of
renovations in the past several years, it's amazing the facility is 24
years older than our's is. I didn't care for the Polytronic electronic
targets over the Sius though. We ate lunch at the hotel restaurant out
on the open patio. The service was very slow but I'd guess the couple
hundred people present for the coaching class overwhelmed them.
We ate dinner at the Wippenhausen club in Freising. We finally left someone behind even though a count was done so he had to take a taxi to the club. This was a newer and smaller club, being formed in 1990 and having about 60 members. It had just 8 10m points in the attic of the local guest house. The president, Helmut Veidt, could be mistaken for an American if it wasn't for his strong accent. He wears cowboy boots, collects Corvettes and lives in Florida during the winter a lot. He was also a lefty so I could borrow his 603 and I even took top honors for the air rifle match. |
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| While we were shooting, a men's choir on the middle floor were practicing their hymns (or beer songs?), which made me feel like I was in a monastery with monks serenading me. How awesome is that?! We couldn't convince them to sing for us during dinner though. Our group actually won this match, which was the top 10 air rifle and top 5 air pistol from each team. Our first victory! We think they must have rigged the results (maybe they only had 8 air rifle shooters?), but a win is a win so they had to buy the schnapps! We all got medallions commemorating the occasion, honorary club memberships, and Scott Pilkington was presented with a large, traditional commemorative wooden shooting plaque. Everyone also got club stickers and pins. This was a pretty late evening since we didn't get back until after midnight and had to be on the bus by 0700 the next morning. | |||
We awoke to yet another beautiful day and drove 2 hours
south to Hohenschwangau with most of the group sleeping because of the
late night we just had.
We could see Neuschwanstein castle from several miles away as we
approached, and I was surprised how close to the mountain base it was.
It also didn't look anything like the pictures you see from the side
that faced us. His parent's castle, Schloss Hohenschwangau located on a
hill just to the west, was originally the seat of the Knights of
Schwangau in the 12th century. It fell into ruins after the Napoleanic
wars of 1800 and 1809. Maximilian II rebuilt it in 1832-36 and in 1848
he became king of Bavaria. He and his wife had 2 sons, Ludwig and Otto.
The family felt a close bond to the former Knights of Schwangau and the
swan became the favorite animal of the family as you can see in the
picture on the right. This castle had electric lights and an elevator
installed in 1910. The last family inhabitant, Prince Regent Luitpold,
died in 1912 and that castle became a museum the following year. |
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| Prince Ludwig became king in 1864 at age 18. His lonely childhood had not prepared him to rule a country and he withdrew into a world where he could live out his dreams. He started construction on the first of his three castles just east of his parent's in 1869 on the ruins of Vorderhohenschwangau castle. He was a great friend of Richard Wagner and intended the castle to be a temple to Wagner so most rooms in the castle were made especially to honor of his friend, including one that looks just like a grotto (cave) that represents a scene from Wagner's Lohengrin opera. It's said that the woodwork of his bedroom and its furnishings took 14 carvers over 4 years to complete. The smaller rooms had ceramic heaters and the larger rooms used central heating from a furnace in the lower level. Ludwig died under dubious circumstances in 1886. He was declared mentally ill and was arrested. Though a good swimmer, he was found drowned along with the doctor that committed him. Six months later his castle was turned into a museum, still unfinished in many areas. The entire second floor is still unfinished brickwork and holds the gift shop and cafe today. | ||
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We drove to a nearby village for lunch and then went on
to the residence of Annette von Weech, our tour organizer, for some
snacks and drinks.
We presented her and our driver with cards and gifts and also presented
the Pilkington's a print of Neuschwanstein signed by all the
participants. We then ate at a local restaurant so we could avoid the
flood of ski traffic returning from the Alps before heading back to
Munich to get packed up. We got into bed shortly after 2200. |
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| It was time for our fun and excitement to end. We were
up at 0430 and on the bus for the airport at 0600. There we finally ran
into a major snag as the airline personnel at the counter claimed their
airline no longer accepted firearms. After a couple hours of lots of
phone calls and nervous waiting by those in our group who brought
firearms, they managed to get things cleared up, but it caused one
couple in our group to miss a flight and get home a day later than
scheduled. I went to the duty free store to spend our last few marks and
then we waited a couple hours at the gate playing euchre.
The flight back to the US from Amsterdam had an interrogation of a few minutes where they asked some fairly specific questions about stuff we had in luggage and they were doing random searches as well. That delayed our flight about an hour to process everyone through since it was a full load. Our last connecting flight home was the only one of the whole trip that was not at least three-quarters full. We landed slightly late at 1950 and Merrie's mom and sister met us with our car so we could drive straight home from there. Some things I found "peculiar" during the tour:
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| World's largest stein (27 liters) | Emily and Forrest Pilkington looking pretty weary | Chess anyone? | I bet Mercedes wouldn't be so prized in the US if they looked like this! |
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SUMMARY – Awesome! Things went very well aside from being unable to purchase ammo there for some reason (Scott was told in advance it wouldn't be a problem) and the trouble with the airline when leaving. Food was great. People were great. Beer was great. It just doesn't get any better than this! It was a very fast-paced tour though, which did wear on some people. The shooters wanted more time at the factories and clubs and the non-shooters wanted more sightseeing and shopping time. There were a couple instances where people opted out of the planned schedule to stay at the guest house or do something else on their own. This was an excellent inaugural event though and I was thankful my wife and I were two of the guinea pigs. I plan to go again sometime in the future and will take along my air rifle next time. Scott is already planning a shotgun tour of Italy in September, 2002, and another German tour in October. |
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