Mad King Ludwig's Place

In early 2000, I decided I needed to take a trip to see something way different than I had ever seen before. I was tired of taking vacations in the United States over the prior few years and resolved to go somewhere that was totally different. I eventually narrowed it down to two options: a tour of Finland to see Alvar Aalto's works or a trip to Germany to see what I probably referred to at that time as "that fairy tale castle built on top of a mountain." I ultimately decided to go to Finland and fell in love with Aalto and the Finnish countryside. This past Sunday, I finally made it to the other option I considered in 2000.

That fairy tale castle built on top of a mountain, or Castle Neuschwanstein, as it's officially called, is located in the village of Hohenshwangau in the German Alps. Sunday, I set off from Munich early on the Deutsche Bahn train to see it; the other castle in the village, Castle Hohenschwangau (yes, there are two castles in one village); and whatever else the place had to offer.

The trip is about a two hour train ride heading south southwest. The ride takes you to the town of Füssen over the flat area around Munich, past town after town with church steeple after church steeple,  then into the rolling foothills of the Alps before finally climbing a little until the Alps themselves come into view, about 20 minutes before arrival in the town itself. From there, it's a short bus ride into Hohenshwangau where you join the hordes of tourists in castle-mania. For perspective on this last point, Hohenschwangau is a village of about 1,000 people which entertains an estimated 2,000,000 visitors each year to see the two castles. It's a pretty big deal.

The two castles date from the period when Bavaria was an independent kingdom (1806-1918). In 1832, Crown Prince Maximilian acquired a site containing the remains of Fortress Schuangau, a medieval fortress, and proceeded to build Castle Hohenschwangau atop the ruins of the old fortress. The initial construction of the castle was completed in 1837 but construction of additions continued until 1855. The castle served as the summer home of Maximilian and his wife and the almost permanent residence of his two sons, Ludwig, named after Maximilian's father King Ludwig I, and Otto.

Looking down on Hohenschwangau, with Castle Hohenschwangau in the center of the picture.

In 1848, Maximilian ascended to the throne and became Maximilian II after his father abdicated the throne to marry his Irish born mistress Eliza Gilbert (stage name Lola Montez - it's more complicated than I'm presenting here but this is just background information after all). Maximilian's reign lasted until 1864 when he died suddenly and his eldest son Ludwig was crowned King Ludwig II at the age of 18.

By all accounts, King Ludwig II was not ready to lead the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1864. He was an introvert who spent most of his childhood living out fantasies based on legends and operas. His reign was notable for his patronage of then disgraced composer Richard Wagner and the arts in general and his failures to engage as monarch. He much preferred spending time in Hohenschwangau than dealing with affairs of state in Munich. 

But more than anything else, King Ludwig II will be remembered for the castles he built and Castle Neuschwanstein was his first, inspired by his childhood fantasies, Wagner's operas and his desire to move out of Castle Hohenschwangau and get away from his mother. The result is what I wanted to see 13 years ago when I decided to go to Finland instead. I've been wanting to visit ever since. By the way, while history records that Ludwig may not have been mad (and despite the title of this post), there's some speculation that he was homosexual (not that that makes one mad) and there's no doubt he was the product of inbreeding typical of European monarchs at that time in history. Those factors, combined with his eccentricity as a castle builder, likely led historians to label him Mad King Ludwig.

Munich's Hauptbanhof (Central Station): Departure point for last Sunday's journey.

I elected to visit the castles in the order they were constructed, first spending time at Hohenschwangau before moving on to Neuschwanstein. In doing so, I was essentially saving the best for last. I did, after all, almost base an entire vacation around Neuschwanstein in 2000. I planned ahead (no surprise there) and reserved spots for a tour of each about 2-1/2 hours apart with a gap for lunch in the middle. Making reservations was completely the right call. The ticket line for advance reservations was about 1/5 as long as the regular line and the staff appeared to let us just cut in line to get ahead of those without tickets.

The walk from the village to Castle Hohenschwangau is advertised as about a 30 minute trek. It isn't. It took us a little more than half that, including taking some time to look at Alpsee, the lake to the west, and the surrounding scenery. Tours last a little more than half an hour and leave from the quite small castle garden and forecourt at the top of the hill. In approaching the castle, it becomes obvious that this was not a castle built for siege like those I visited as a child in Great Britain. It's a pretty castle, a very large single family home, if you will, just decorated to look like a castle.

The main functions in the castle are arranged around three floors with King Maximilian's quarters on the second floor, the queen's rooms on the first floor and the third and uppermost floor reserved for the Ludwig and Otto. Only the first two floors are accessible to visitors but that's enough to understand the character of the place. This is clearly a flight of fancy for Maximilian. Almost every surface in the castle is painted with original works connecting the family back to the historical knights of Schuangau. Paintings on Maximilian's floor portray a romanticized life of a knight in the middle ages (presumably Maximilian) complete with bloodless battle scenes of dead bodies strewn about at the feet of the conquering king.

The queen's rooms are not much different, with similar paintings depicting the life (also romanticized) of a lady in the middle ages. The height of the excess in this castle for me was the queen's bed chamber, painted in the Turkish style after a trip the couple took to that country earlier in their marriage. The rooms are admittedly impressive, both for the extreme amount of work that went into painting the rooms but for what else the rooms contain. There is every manner of expensive bauble, from an early elevator to solid silver chandeliers to billiard balls made of ivory. There's no doubt in my mind that the King of Bavaria in the mid-1800s had it pretty good.

Castle Hohenschwangau.

Following the tour of Hohenschwangau, and after a quick lunch of sausages and weissbeer (lots more about that later in this blog), I moved on to Neuschwanstein. If Hohenschwangau appeared to be a flight of fancy, Neuschwanstein is full on fantasy. It absolutely blows Hohenschwangau away, which I am sure was partially Ludwig's intent. It also provided for me a real justification that Ludwig could, in fact, have been mad.

Tours leave from the castle's enclosed courtyard, which is immense. It becomes obvious immediately that this place is way bigger than Castle Hohenschwangau lower in the village. And indeed that's true. Neuschwanstein is huge and very impressive for its sheer size alone. It is definitely worth doing last. If I'd reversed the order of my tours, I'm convinced Hohenschwangau would have been extremely anticlimactic.

The enclosed courtyard of Castle Neuschwanstein.

From the courtyard, the tour takes you up the servant's spiral stair, three floors with large floor to floor heights straight up, as if the tour operators intended to kill off those who aren't that mobile immediately. Upon arrival in the throne room, which is the first real room you visit on the tour, the amount of ego it took to build this place becomes painfully obvious. The rear wall of the throne room is decorated with paintings of canonized former kings of Europe with God himself above them, providing a glimpse into where Ludwig probably saw himself in the history of European rulers.

It gets stranger from there. The place is a Gothic fantasy. Rooms are covered with dark wood carvings and painted scenes of middle ages fantasy and it's dimly lit just like a real medieval castle. There's also a fake cave in the place so Ludwig could act out adventure fantasies. But more than anything else about the castle, Ludwig's fascination with legend and Wagner's operas becomes overpowering by the end of tour. 

The characters Lohengrin, whom Ludwig obviously identified with strongly, and his bride, Elsa, appear in painted scenes throughout the castle again and again. It's made very obvious in the castle how much Ludwig cared about these two as depicted in Wagner's opera, Lohengrin. But in the top floor singers' room, the obsession with Wagnerian opera is on full display. The whole room is based on the opera Parsifal, which tells the story of the knight Pervical, one of King Arthur's knights of the round table, and his quest for the holy grail. The room drips with scenes and imagery from the opera. I think it's understandable perhaps for a kid to cover every surface in his room with Star Wars or whatever movie posters today, but we're talking about a man in his 30s lost in a fantasy world occupied by heroes and legends. It's a little disturbing to think about the excess in full view in the castle. It's amazing to think about the rights afforded to Ludwig at the expense of the Bavarian state. In many ways, it's a good thing he was a king. I'm not sure he could have survived otherwise. 

Despite the evident fantasy of the place, Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau were well worth the trip from Munich. In many respects it was a perfect day trip, about eight hours from start to finish, including a trip up the hill from Neuschwanstein to the Marienbrücke, a bridge built by Maximilian to span between two of the Alpine peaks. There's a lot of walking up hills involved in a day trip to Hohenschwangau but trust me when I tell you that making the extra half mile or so walk (seemingly almost straight up) is worth it. It's only on that bridge that you get the picture postcard view of Neuschwanstein. Despite the deflecting planks on the obviously overloaded bridge, it's worth a few steps out to take in the spectacular scenery.

Making reservations and buying tickets ahead of time: always a good idea.