Most everyone has been to Disney world and have seen the Magic Kingdom’s Cinderella castle. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/TDL_Cinderella_Castle_New_Color.jpg/200px-TDL_Cinderella_Castle_New_Color.jpg This is a magical palace where most children especially little girls dream of going into and pretending for a day that they are a princess. The inspiration for the Cinderella’s castle is in Germany and is called Neuschwanstien. This palace was built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria. It was a fairytale place that was vastly different in style from his childhood home Hohenschwangu, which was decorated in the Gothic style http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/idea/index.htm. The style of this castle was simpler and not as ornate as the newer and more famous castle of Neuschwansiten. There was more reason to build the castle than to just have some fantasy. In 1866 Bavaria lost a war to Prussian and was made to remove the king’s right to a army during war. This basically took away his power. After this Ludwig was put more into a fantasy world where he would eventually be fully removed from power http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/idea/index.htm. King Ludwig II was greatly influenced by the writer Richard Wagner. The relationship between these two was long and close and it was Wagner’s stories that inspired some of the internal decoration of the castle. The name of the palace was even named after a character in one of his plays, The Swan King. The style of decoration of Neuschwanstien is a mix between a new Versailles and Christian kingship in the Middle Ages. http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/ludwig/biography.htm. These include a Romanesque, Gothic, and Byzantine architecture (this is in the Throne Room).

The cornerstone of the Palace was laid in September 1869. It wasn’t until 1873 that the gatehouse was done and King Ludwig was able to live in the house and observe the construction for the rest of the palace. He would only live in the palace for 170 days until he was removed from his position and then his mysterious death occurred. King Ludwig would never see the palace completed to it 200 rooms.

The interior of the finished part of the castle is remarkable and covers only 6000 square meters. The biggest room to be completed is that of the hall of Singers. This is a theatrical room that was designed after Wartburg. This was a 13^th century castle in Thuringia, Germany. This was highly decorated room that was used only for the King as a place where he could place out his medieval fantasy of the Kings of old. The other greatly impressive room was that of the Throne hall. This room is done in the Byzantine style and is modeled after the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche in Munich http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allerheiligen-Hofkirche . The room takes up both the 3^rd and 4^th floors, but was not totally finished. The throne room does not have a throne. The floor is one of the masterpieces of this room is the floor mosaic. This was completed after the King’s death but is breathtaking in its complexity. All of this beauty came at a cost for the King who by the time that he was kicked out of his position he owed 14 million for the construction for the construction of the palace. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle.

King Ludwig never intended for his palaces to be open to people other than his servants. But 6 weeks after his death in 1886 the administrators of his estate allowed paying visitors to enter his castle. This provided a steady stream of income in which to repay his debt and it has also created one of the most popular and famous castles in Europe. There are 6,000 visitors a day totaling to 1.3 million a year. This might have upset the King But it has given more to his reputation of a mysterious and fairy-tale King http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/palace/index.htm.

Being at this castle was sort of an ordeal to get and the day that we went it was raining all day. In the end though it was very interesting and the rain gave the castle an eerie fog behind the castle that provided it with more mystery. I really enjoyed being at the castle and seeing all of the great examples of architecture in one place. It was a very picturesque and beautiful town.