Posted on 14.10.2011, supplemented on 12.01.2013, and completed on 12.12.2013
It seems known? Looks like a fairytale castle? It really is, because Neuschwanstein castle (near Füssen, Bavaria), kept in the style of a Knight's Castle of the Middle Ages, inspired Walt Disney to build his castles. It delighted your childhood many times, (maybe) without you know that has an real model.
Once crowned, eccentric but so cultivated Ludwig II of Bavaria simply implemented a childhood dream (some can do this) to build an never seen palace on the ruins of castles Vorderhohenschwangau and Hinterhohenschwangau, which he knew from his frequent trips on the hills around the village Schwangau. Unreserved admirer and devoted patron of Richard Wagner, Ludwig thought the castle as a tribute to composer and style could not be other than the Neo-Romanesque, practically a romantic interpretation of the Middle Ages. Buildings, as imagined by the king, practically never ended, but he got to live there for two years until his suspect death in 1886, at the age of just 40.
At the time of Ludwig's death the palace was far from complete. The king never intended to make the palace accessible to the public, but no more than six weeks after the king's death the regent Luitpold ordered the palace opened to paying visitors, the administrators managing to balance the construction debts until 1899. Due to its secluded location, the palace survived the two World Wars without destruction, even if in WWII it served as a depot for Nazi plunder from France, and also as a depot for the gold of the German Reichsbank, and in april 1945 the SS had plans to blow up it to prevent the building itself and the artwork it contained from falling to the enemy.
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