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There it is – Neuschwanstein,
Germany's most beloved castle.
But what makes it so fascinating?
Is it the stunning setting?
The fairy-tale towers?
Or maybe its dramatic history?
Neuschwanstein is famous
around the world as the castle
of the fairy-tale king Ludwig II of Bavaria.
And now it has finally been named
a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Every year about 1 million people
come to Bavaria just to see this place.
But what exactly awaits them?
And who was King Ludwig II,
the man behind this magical creation?
Let's find out.
Follow me on a tour of the castle
from the public facing pomp to the
king's most private quarters.
I'll show you all you need to know before a visit.
Neuschwanstein castle is located
near Hohenschwangau in Bavaria
in southern Germany,
about 2 hours by car from Munich.
The crowds are huge year
round, even in the village below.
Here you'll find souvenirs – from swans
to figurines of the king.
You can buy tickets here,
but it's better to
book them online in advance.
You can only go inside the
castle as part of a guided tour
at a specific time.
Now you just have to get up to the castle.
And then you have two options to get up.
You can either walk,
which takes about 30 minutes.
Or you can take a horse-drawn carriage
for a more romantic and relaxed ride.
From Zimmermansplatz,
located just below the castle,
you get a first stunning close-up view.
On the last stretch you have no choice.
The only way in is on foot.
But before I go in, I want to know
what brought the other visitors here.
I think this is a must-see in Germany.
It's very great, with a long history,
a very magnificent building.
Very good.
Love it. Like this is crazy.
The castle with the
cliffs behind it and the ravine.
We saw the bridge across that,
that's a beautiful scenario.
And then from the other way,
with the lake – two completely different scenarios.
I think it's a perfect location.
Now I finally get to go in.
We had to wait until all the visitors
were gone because filming is only
allowed outside opening hours.
I get to enter through the courtyard.
Patrick Korb is going to guide me
through the fairy-tale king's castle.
Would that have been
in his interest, to have
millions of people walk
through his dream castle?
Not at all.
There's an anecdote that he
actually said on his last stay here.
He's said to have said to his
personal servant: "Please, Fritz,
never let anybody go through here."
So they were effectively
disrespecting his last wish.
They were.
Not a good omen for a visit.
Ludwig II grew up not far from here.
Even after he became king,
he preferred to stay in the Bavarian
mountains rather than
in his residence in Munich.
What kind of a person was he?
What was his personality?
Do we know?
We know quite a lot.
He was a deep and contrasting character.
He was a dreamer, certainly,
an eccentric, certainly,
becoming even more
eccentric the longer he lived.
He liked art.
He loved theatre and music.
He was not himself an artist.
He liked to watch it.
He didn't like a lot of the things
that other young
noblemen were meant to like –
hunting, soldiery, army,
he didn’t care much about that.
Which set him apart
from his peers of his time.
And that might have been
another reason why he wanted
to get out and build his own
world, where he could be just himself.
Neuschwanstein castle was never completed.
Many rooms remain empty to this day.
The unfinished nature is visible even here
in the richly decorated throne hall.
So this is the throne room.
But there is no throne.
There is no throne.
What's going on here?
The throne tragically was one of the pieces
that were never done when the king died.
The royal family stopped
investment right after the king died,
thought about what to do with it,
and made it a museum.
But anything not yet started
at that point was never done.
They just finished up things.
One of the main things missing
is the throne that should be standing there.
When you look left and right of the staircase,
the 12 apostles, 6 sainted kings above the platform,
where the throne would have been standing.
And above them all,
Jesus Christ pointing to
Ludwig II’s view of kingship,
sent by God to rule over certain people.
Not the kingship
he experienced in his time,
but the old kingship, the old idea.
There's a big symbol for that too,
kind of hidden in its meaning
but not to be overlooked:
a giant chandelier
here in the center of the room,
weighing nearly a ton, made of brass,
96 candles alone on it.
It’s modeled on a Byzantine imperial crown.
It’s meant as a symbol for the old kings
because the crown hangs
between a cupola, sun and stars –
heaven – and the mosaic floor,
animals, plants, earth,
showing where the old king
stood in their societies—
between their subjects
on earth and God in heaven.
Ludwig's fairy-tale castle is full of contradictions.
On one hand, it was
an escape from the present
into an idealized Middle Ages.
On the other hand it was equipped
with all the perks of the
technical progress of its time.
From the kitchen, a small
paternoster lift brought food to the king.
There was running water – warm water even –
and a telephone line to the servants.
And this is where he slept?
This is where he slept.
This is the king’s bedroom.
It's not a king size mattress though.
It isn't.
It's a single bed though.
He was never married.
He had a fiancé in his youth,
but they never married.
So this was always intended
as a place for one person.
And also makes the bed a bit
smaller than it would have been.
No wife, a fiancé back in the day.
Any love interests that
we might know about today?
He was very likely homosexual
without living it out.
Because he was also very
likely a true deep Catholic believer,
which made him not
a very happy person, I guess.
So there’s stories and were stories.
But there’s no real thing in the open.
The fact that he had to hide
that very substantial part of himself:
Do you think that contributed to him
wanting to build this kind of fairy-tale world
for him where he could hide from the real world?
Might well be one of the aspects that led to that.
Together though with all the other aspects:
not really having the power he liked to,
not having a lot of friends
or peers that he connected to.
Not liking the city, just plain as that.
He liked the countryside.
So it’s one aspect out of many aspects, in my view,
that made him search for a place
where he could build his own reality.
One person Ludwig II felt close or kindred to,
at least temporarily, was
the composer Richard Wagner.
It's noticeable all around,
but mostly in the so-called singer's hall.
The room in total is again a kind of stage set.
Because the king here tried to rebuild
the singer’s hall of Wartburg Castle.
Wartburg Castle, a famous
medieval castle in Germany,
appears in one of Richard Wagner’s operas, "Tannhäuser".
So Ludwig II wanted to have a
similar room for himself on his own castle.
Again, this kind of a dream world.
Unfortunately, a dream world that
he himself never really got to enjoy.
He did spend only two
months here before he was aged 40.
He was declared insane and thus unfit to rule
by a commission of the Bavarian government.
Here's a tip for you.
King Ludwig also had two
other magnificent castles built.
They too have recently been
declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
And both are open to the public.
Shortly after construction
began on Neuschwanstein,
Ludwig had Schloss Linderhof built
in the Ammergau Alps,
a rather small rococo-style castle.
And then there is Schloss Herrenchiemsee,
a baroque palace complex
modeled after Versailles.
The Hall of Mirrors is even 2 meters
longer than the original in France.
But back to Neuschwanstein.
I absolutely have to show you the balcony.
As I said, that’s exactly what I mean, that connection.
I think a visit to
Neuschwanstein is not complete
if you can’t appreciate the surroundings.
Walk around the castle,
come out here, enjoy that,
spend some time in the
surrounding landscape and enjoy.
That was my day
at Neuschwanstein already.
So what is it that keeps
enchanting people to this day?
I think it's of course the beautiful
scenery, the whimsical architecture,
the dreamlike interiors,
and maybe also to some extent,
that tragic, mysterious king behind it all.
What about you?
What did you like best?
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