King Ludwig the second of Bavaria was kind of an odd character. He was absolutely obsessed with the Arthurian tales of knights and castles. Had a bit of a crush on the French kings, and may possibly have been a vampire?
So in 1869 he began building his very own fairytale castle. Neuschwanstein (New Swan Stone) Castle wouldn’t be complete before he died. He poured a huge amount of money into this project, so much that he was declared insane, deposed, and actually held prisoner in his own castle. Sad.
The castle is set up on a hill, because all great castles are, and there are several ways to get up there. You can walk, take a shuttle bus, or take a horse drawn carriage. We opted for the shuttle, but on the walk back down we passed one of the horse drawn carriages, and they are actually electric carts. The horses are mostly just for show!
We hiked up a bit for the photo above. I got caught taking photos for others for so long I had to start telling people no so we could leave. David overheard people recommending me. Lol
This area of the Alps is very similar to the Cascades. It felt very familiar to us.
Once again, no photos allowed inside, but let’s of photos from the courtyard and surrounding areas.
King Ludwig II died under very mysterious circumstances. He had gone walking with his doctor and the never returned. They found both bodies floating in the lake drowned.
We almost had our own lake tragedy when David walked away and left his cellphone sitting with the ducks. Someone turned it in at the desk, and we only held the bus up about 5 minutes searching for it. All turned out well in the end though.
Gryphon Travel 
Leave a comment