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The young prince Otto found himself looking sadly out through the carriage window, entranced by the blur of the treeline as it mingled with the rolling fields and lonely village houses of the pastoral Christians living their isolated yet pure lives in Upper Bavaria. No matter how sad it made him, to leave his native German land, they say that the duty of royalty rules above all else, and now he, in the company of his beloved elder brother Maximilian, found himself trembling with apprehension in an adorned carriage making its way along the road to faraway Greece, where he was destined to become king. Thus the sovereign monarchs of Europe decided and thus his father insisted; he simply could not possibly refuse their bidding. Laying behind him, in the ashes of his past, memories of his mother's tears, of bittersweet farewell balls thrown in grand regalia, of hollow congratulatory speeches, of his father's sad and bottomless and soulful eyes, and of the heavy hand of the father upon the shoulder of the son.. and what ahead? What but a distant and unknown country that itself has only just cast off the centuries-old shackles of the Ottoman Empire, a country set to ruin by war and unforgivable misfortune. Now he, a young monarch, will have to rule over these obscure and mystic people who wear their clothes in all black.. who kiss the faces of saints painted on ancient wooden boards.
In a moment, the silence vanished as Maximilian said, “Well, this is still Greece, the cradle of earthly civilization, the source of philosophical inspiration for countless great and terrible minds, for poets, for thinkers. You'll be perfectly fine there! After all those years under the dread Turkish yoke, the humble people have lost all hope of finding a true Christian monarch, and you, Otto, will be for them like a tasty sip of some true religious freedom. They will carry you in their arms!"
In his mind, the young king-to-be responded in a whisper of a thought, "..of course, it's easy for you to speak now," as he cast a quick glance at his brother. Maximilian as the Crown Prince will inherit the entire coveted throne of Bavaria and he, Otto, will get the sun-baked ruins of the Parthenon.
"My dear Maximilian! All of the power of Greece only remains in books and statues; today's Greece has nothing to do with the divinity of Plutarch and Aristotle. The country rots in ruin after its horrific rape by the Turks! It will be necessary to rebuild both the palaces AND the consciousness of the people as a whole! And I am afraid that my three thousand brave Bavarian soldiers may not be enough to put things in order there" - and Otto, leaning back, again plunged into his mournful contemplation of the rolling landscape outside the carriage window. Gradually, either from fatigue or from the perpetually calm flickering of the treeline, his eyelids grew leaden and heavy and he forgot his thoughtful reveries as deeply and as quickly as the running of the mountain water in the myriad alpine streams which they had crossed along the way.
The carriage shook, and Otto opened his eyes, looking at those few surrounding him - Maximilian was reading a book, and the rest of the attendants also went about their own business. The prince yet again returned his gaze through the carriage window as before, but there still flashed the selfsame picturesque landscapes of calm and forgiving forests and mountains. "How beautiful it all is in our country in Bavaria, all these forests, streams, mountains.. I will dearly miss all this there, over there, in that foreign and strange land!" Out of helpless desperation and loss of will did he utter this lamenting cry. "Yes, it's beautiful," said Maximilian, laying his book aside, "but I would say beautiful Austria, not Bavaria... we crossed the border not half an hour ago, in Kiefersfelden and are now in Austrian Tyrol - what on Earth is the matter with you, Otto!" he added hastily, seeing the pale face of his brother.
"Austria! Like Austria?!" the despondent prince cried out, "I overslept the border! I didn't even go out to say goodbye to my loved land! And you didn't even bother to wake me up! Stop! STOP! Stop the carriage!" - Otto found himself inconsolable. When the carriage stopped, the prince opened the door and jumped out onto the road with a look of pure determination in his sallow face. "I won't dare to leave without saying goodbye to my native Bavaria! Do whatever you want, but I'm returning to Kiefersfelden." With this, the young monarch quickly walked back in the direction of the border they had crossed not too long ago.
Maximilian quickly realized that arguing with his brother would be useless; he sighed and waved his hand. The royal carriage slowly began to move, turning its wheels in obedient pursuit of its king and royal cargo.
When Ludwig found out about this little adventure, he felt supremely and overflowingly delighted. "My son! He is all from me and my own! I would also not have left, not without kissing my native land goodbye! What kind of city even was this - Kiefersfelden?? Ha ha, where, again? It matters not - this small town will now forever be known as it goes down in history as the place where King Otto said his final goodbyes to his native Bavaria and her ancestrally German soil! I will order the raising of a monument - no, better yet, a chapel upon this symbolic and sacred place! Let the people pray, and let them remember my son! Yes, and of course, without exception, you know what time it is -- we will make a new commemorative Thaler: to the glory of the King of Greece, my very own Otto!"
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Ludwig kept his royal word and diligently arranged for the completion of the new chapel's foundation, as they successfully started it on July 1st, 1834 at the celebration of the prince's nineteenth name-day. Two years later, in 1836, the construction was completed and the building was consecrated by the Archbishop in the presence of King Otto himself.
Ludwig personally arranged for the chapel's unique design, settling proudly on his favorite neo-Gothic style as portrayed through Olmüller, the esteemed architect of the court. And even today, a lone tourist traveling through the Tyrolean mountains on the border of Upper Bavaria suddenly finds himself in surprised forgetfulness standing before the captivating and hauntingly beautiful Gothic chapel that opens up in splendor and majesty before his very eyes, resting on a rolling mountainside on the banks of the endless river. The Chapel of St. Otto, as they say in the guidebooks - however, local old-timers will tell you over a glass of beer the story of the young king leaving his beloved native land, the one and only Otto, the King of Greece, the son of Ludwig, the First of Bavaria.
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German Talers since 1800 by John S. Davenport.
Bavaria, King Ludwig Series (1825 - 1848).
Taler 1836, OTTO CHAPEL.
Davenport 579, KM 786 (413), Thun 71, AKS 138, J.53.
Commemorative - for the erection of the Chapel on Otto departure to the Greece.
Obverse: Head of the Ludwig I to the right, LUDWIG I KOENIG VON BAYERN. ZEHN EINE FEINE MARK
Reverse: BAYERN ERRICHTETEN DIE H. OTTOKAPELLE ZU KIEFERSFELDEN ZUM ANDENKEN AN KOEN. OTTO'S ABSCHIED V. SEINEM VATERLANDE. Chapel, 1836 below.
PCGS MS 63.
28.0600 g., 0.83300 Silver, 0.7515 oz. ASW.
Patchy champagne toning on clear mirror fields, amazing details of the portrait and chapel.