We enter the castle and just stare in wonder at the beauty that unfolds. What a magnificent collection of fine arts and treasures for King Ludwig to have lived amongst. It’s no wonder that he had the government of the time concerned about his ever rising debt, as he continued to build one castle after another.

The interior of Neuschwanstein is beautifully ornate and the 2 story Byzantine style throne room has a floor of individually chiseled tiles and a series of pillars in imitation porphyry and lapis lazuli. The throne however, was never built.

The Kings bedroom is furnished in Gothic style and it reportedly took 14 woodcarvers four years to complete the elaborate oak carvings for the room. The elaborately carved bed resembles a gothic church with its towers and tracery windows.

On the walls are paintings showing scenes from the epic by the medieval German poet Gottfried von Straßburg, Tristan and Isolde. The bedroom has a hidden locked door which leads to a private toilet.There is just so much to see and unfortunately photography is not permitted inside and the guides are very strict about this.

A truly memorable experience that we recommend you see. I guess we can be thankful for the excesses of past kings and queens or none of these magnificent structures would be around to delight us today, even though the populace suffered at the time to pay for them.

So after being sated with the extravagances of a bygone era we set off down the hill back to the ticketing area to catch the coach back to Munich.

Linderhof Castle is the smallest of  King Ludwig’s palaces and everything about it is amazing, from the beautiful gardens with the gilt fountains through to the kitchens in the base of the castle.

As with most of the palaces in Europe, each room is an absolute feast of opulence and color and each is more jaw dropping than the last.

The hall of mirrors is reminiscent of the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. The ceiling is painted with with “The Birth of Venus” and there is a massive chandelier hanging from the beautifully painted ceiling.

The music room has tapestry like wall hangings and features a life sized porcelain peacock. A beautifully decorated piano stands in one corner of the room.

The Kings bedroom is ornately furnished and has a painting of Apollo in his chariot over the bed,  which has a rich canopy embroidered with the Bavarian Coat of Arms.

As you look around the room you notice that everythingis ornately decorated with gilt .

Perhaps one of the most interesting rooms is the dining room, where the king would generally dine alone.

The table is a on an elevator or dumb waiter which allows it to be lowered to the kitchen below, the meal was set and the table raised back up into the dining room. This allowed the king to dine in peace without the comings and goings of the servants.

Ludwig was an admirer of Wagner and the Venus Grotto was built as an illustration of the First Act of Wagner’s “Tannhäuser”.

Ludwig would watch performances of his favorite operas, sometimes from the far side of the artificial lake, although sometimes he would be rowed over the lake in his golden shell-boat. The king wanted to create the effect of the blue grotto of Capri and so he had the area illuminated by installing dynamos that allowed the grotto to be bathed in changing colors.

This was a truly marvelous experience and is well worth the trip.

We took a tour bus to visit the castles of  King Ludwig II. The tour guide was excellent and gave us lots of information about Germany and Bavaria.

There was at the time, no speed limit on the autobahn but this was being changed even though the road deaths in Germany were minor compared to other countries with enforced speed limits. Crazy isn’t it. It doesn’t matter what the facts are if some politician thinks he can win votes and collect revenue by passing a law where one isn’t required.

However, we were off to Linderhof Castle to see the first of the three castles on the tour.

King Ludwig II was an extremely private individual who designed this palace to ensure he had complete privacy.

This was the only castle that Ludwig completed before his untimely death at a young age under rather suspicious circumstances. It has never been proved if he died of natural causes or was assassinated.

King Ludwig was an admirer of the arts and especially Richard Wagner and he had a beautiful theater constructed in the castle where he could stage performances of his favorite operas.

He was also an extravagant person who almost bankrupted his country with his excesses.