“I want to remain an eternal mystery to myself and others,”
-- King Ludwig II of Bavaria=====================================================================
(in the south of Germany) Neuschwanstein Castle (German: Schloss Neuschwanstein) is a 19th-century historicist palace on a rugged hill of the foothills of the Alps, near the border with Austria. It is located in the Swabia region of Bavaria, in the municipality of Schwangau, above the incorporated village of Hohenschwangau, which is also the location of Hohenschwangau Castle. (The closest larger town is Füssen.) The castle stands above the narrow gorge of the Pöllat stream, east of the Alpsee and Schwansee lakes, close to the mouth of the Lech into Forggensee.
Despite the main residence of the Bavarian monarchs at the time (the Munich Residenz) being one of the most extensive palace complexes in the world, King Ludwig II of Bavaria felt the need to escape from the constraints he saw himself exposed to in Munich, and commissioned Neuschwanstein Palace on the remote northern edges of the Alps as a retreat but also in honor of composer Richard Wagner, whom he greatly admired.
+ Ludwig chose to pay for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing rather than Bavarian public funds. Construction began in 1869 but was never completed. The castle was intended to serve as a private residence for the king but he died in 1886, and it was opened to the public shortly after his death. Since then, more than 61 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle. More than 1.3 million people visit annually, with as many as 6,000 per day in the summer.
+ The inspiration for the construction of Neuschwanstein came from two journeys that Ludwig took in 1867: one in May to the reconstructed Wartburg near Eisenach, and another in July to the Château de Pierrefonds, which Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was transforming from a ruined castle into a historicist palace. Ludwig believed both buildings represented a Romanticist interpretation of the Middle Ages, as well as the musical mythology of his friend Wagner, whose operas Tannhäuser and Lohengrin had made a lasting impression on him. In a letter to Richard Wagner in May 1868, Ludwig wrote: "It is my intention to rebuild the old castle ruin of Hohenschwangau near the Pöllat Gorge in the authentic style of the old German knights' castles, and I must confess to you that I am looking forward very much to living there one day (in 3 years); ... you know the revered guest I would like to accommodate there; the location is one of the most beautiful to be found, holy and unapproachable, a worthy temple for the divine friend who has brought salvation and true blessing to the world."
+ In 1884, the King moved into the Pala. The palace was intended to serve King Ludwig II as a kind of inhabitable theatrical setting. As a temple of friendship, it was also dedicated to the life and work of Richard Wagner, who died in 1883 without visiting the building. In the end, Ludwig II lived in the palace for only 172 days.
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