Castle of Bavaria’s Mad King
HOHENSCHWANGAU, BAVARIA — Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm — aka King Ludwig II— had several nicknames: the Fairy King, the Swan King and, my favorite, the Mad King. He also held several dukedoms, but we won’t get into that.
He ascended to the Bavarian throne, in what is now southern Germany, in 1866, at the age of 18.
Ludwig had little interest in ruling over his country. He was introverted and showed scant concern in governmental matters, which quickly led to tensions with Bavaria’s ministers. The Mad King possessed two passions: building lavish castles and the German composer Richard Wagner, on whom he had a serious, if unrequited crush. Wagner had a keen interest in women, judging from the number of affairs he had with various wives, whose husbands eventually found out and ran him out of one European city after another. Ludwig was closeted, given the times, but ample evidence of his relationships with men survives in his correspondence and records.
No matter. The Mad King thought he knew how to get a castle built. He believed that he needed to get out of Munich despite having nice digs at the Munich Residenz, the largest city palace in Germany. He commissioned the construction of Neuschwanstein Castle on the remote northern edges of the Alps, nearly in Austria, as a retreat. It was also intended as a tribute to Wagner, with many rooms bearing wall paintings that depict his various operas.
Ludwig decided to pay for the palace by borrowing money and drawing on his personal fortune rather than talking the Bavarian parliament into paying for it. Construction began in 1869, just three years after he ascended to the throne.
Neuschwanstein Castle was never completed. The Mad King kept adding on, a 19th-century version of today’s oligarchs trying to outbuild their wealthy colleagues. He took an overly keen interest in its construction, constantly adding, changing and running up cost overruns that eventually compelled the Bavarian government to essentially depose him. When construction ended, albeit incomplete, it totaled 65,000 square feet. That’s half a Walmart Supercenter.
In 1886, when Ludwig was just 40, the Bavarian poultry came home to roost. Ludwig had spent all his private family money and borrowed from anyone who would loan it. He had ignored the affairs of state for too long while building his castles. His ministers accused him of insanity and deposed him on grounds of mental illness — a malady that would have disqualified more than a few regents. Ludwig was confined to the Lake Starnberg castle, south of Munich. Not long after, his lifeless body was found floating in Lake Starnberg, along with that of his family doctor. A claim of suicide was made, something at least a few historians now doubt.
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Neuschwanstein Castle was opened to the public a few years after the Mad King’s death, whatever the cause. This was the first stop that daughter Mere, son-in-law Matt, and I made after they picked me up at the Munich airport, to kick off this autumn adventure. It has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, visited by more than 1.5 million people each year. Only guided tours by appointment are allowed, with reservations required. Only one tour daily is given in English, at 5:20 p.m. S
o, we drank a couple of beers before hiking up to the castle which juts out of the Alps like a Disney castle.
There is a reason for the similarity. Walt Disney visited Neuschwanstein in the early 1950s and modeled Disney’s Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California, after it. The Disney version opened about a month before I was born in 1955. (Take a look at the photos accompanying this piece to see the similarities, though no photos were allowed inside. I guess it’s a Bavarian thing. I have included an image from Disney’s website of Sleeping Beauty Castle) 
Our guide was a solemn young man who spoke impeccable, if slightly accented, English. The tour was just 30 minutes long but fascinating. Wagner is featured prominently, including with a concert hall in which Ludwig never got to hear the famed composer on which he had a crush.
We stepped back outside as dusk beckoned and made our way down the mountainside. It was time to head to the next adventure.
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