The Castle of Neuschwanstein

By Wilburn Carther


The Neuschwanstein castle is essentially a Romanesque castle found in Fussen, south west Bavaria, Germany. This specific castle was actually owned by King Ludwig II which he used as an actual getaway and also a kind of tribute to Richard Wagner and actually several places in the castle were influenced by Wagner himself, especially the singers room which can be seen on the 3rd floor and contains paintings of different personalities taken from some of the operas of Wagner.

The exterior area of the castle features a gatehouse, along with 2 watch towers. The actual castle's gatehouse opens to the castle's courtyard which features two levels and in addition the southern end of the court yard features a wonderful view of the mountain scenery. Along the west side of the courtyard you will discover an incomplete formation made of bricks that was going to be a chapel but never was successfully finished. The north side of the court yard showcases a 3 story building also known as "the knights house" that was used as service rooms. The western end of the courtyard area showcases the "palas" which was a real hall made up of servants rooms and also Ludwig's stateroom.

The inside of the actual castle was initially meant to hold over 200 rooms, but it was not ever completed and only fifteen rooms were finished in total. The castle is comprised of the actual entrance hall, in which the floor is lined in mettlach tiles and is split into two aisles. The main hall of the castle comes with groined vaults along with gorgeous paintings. The throne room, which was essentially created as Parsifals "grail hall" and was designed in a unique Byzantine style was finished around the same year as Ludwig's death. The actual throne room of the castle is in fact two storeys high but it is missing quite possibly the most crucial element of the whole room, and that is the actual throne. The dining room is also designed with gorgeous paintings which represent the 'period of the Minnesinger" and comes with one dining room table which is actually over one metre in height. The actual interior planning of this particular dining facility was actually put together by Julius Hoffman.

The bedroom was essentially designed with a Neo-Gothic form of design and took around four and a half years to completely finish and also had a total of fourteen wood carvers working on it. The bed room has wall paintings which depict a story of Wagner which is "Tristan and Isolde" and also a washstand which obtains its very own flowing water supply from the steady stream that is nicely situated over the castle.

The castle's chapel that is connected to the bed room was actually dedicated to King Louis IX, the French king and also has amazing paintings depicting the actual life of King Louis IX.

The castle's dressing room area was made with oak paneling and also features paintings which represents the work of Walther von der Vogelweide and Hans Sachs. The living room is quite highly designed and additionally has an added room or space called the "swans corner" which was actually dedicated to Lohengrin - the legend of the swan knight. This amazing castle featured a synthetic stalactite cave that's created out of paris and oakum plaster and was actually designed as a space for Wagner to be able to perform his own operas which were basically set inside of a cave.

The singer hall of the castle spreads over the whole 4th floor area of this particular structure and was also created and designed by Julius Hoffman and is a replica of the Minstrel hall of the Wartburg castle. The kitchen of the castle was an incredibly large hall area which was held up by only two pillars or columns and also consisted of a standing type stove in addition to a large container for all fish.

This particular castle remains standing upright even today and it pulls in people from all over the world to explore its spectacular qualities. This particular castle receives over six thousand site visitors per day in the summertime and around one million visitors every year.




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