Another Castle Visit

I have already shown you one castle--Bodiam Castle, which is now mostly ruins and was built hundreds and hundreds of years ago.  I thought I would show you a more modern version of a European castle.

This is Neuschwanstein Castle in Fussen, Germany, which was built by King Ludwig II starting in 1869.  Ludwig was called the "Fairy Tale King", and when we look at Neuschwanstein, it is easy to see why.  You might recognize it--the Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland was modeled after Neuschwanstein.

Ludwig II loved Richard Wagner, who was a composer. Wagner wrote many operas, and Ludwig had decided to make Neuschwanstein a monument to that.  All the paintings and tapestries show scenes from these operas. You cannot take pictures of the inside, so you will just get to see lots of pictures of the outside as I tell you more about Ludwig and his beloved Neuschwanstein.

Ludwig was king of Bavaria, which is an area of Germany in the south.  He loved this land--it is easy to see why! Neuschwanstein is nestled in the Bavarian Alps.  This was one of four castles Ludwig had planned. The first two had already been built, and the fourth was never built.  Why, you ask?

Simple:  a band of people in the government didn't like Ludwig.  They did some tests on him and had him declared insane (there is dispute today as to whether or not those tests were faked, the doctors given false information, etc.).  When you are insane, you cannot be king, and so they forced Ludwig to step down. This is where the name "Mad King Ludwig" came about, by which he is sometimes called.  

So the government made Ludwig move out of his beloved Neuschwanstein, where he had only lived for 172 days. The very next day, Ludwig was found dead. He had drowned mysteriously in a lake with his psychiatrist. There are a lot of theories as to how he died (was it suicide or murder?), but to this day, no one knows for sure. Immediately following his death, all construction on his castles stopped. Neuschwanstein is unfinished to this day--the third floor has never been complete. And the fourth castle he commissioned was scrapped, never to be built.

Only 6 weeks after his death, Neuschwanstein was opened for visitors.  Despite the claims that he was "mad," the Bavarians loved their king.  There are monuments up for him everywhere. The people of Bavaria will never let the memory of their "Fairy Tale King" die.