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Published: April 27th 2007
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Leaving Innsbruck, the action plan was to drive the romantic road and see the castles before heading to Augsburg where craig would play golf and we would stay the night. We drove to the two famous castles on the romantic road, the Schloss Newschwanstein (will refer to as News), and the Schloss Hoenschwangau (will refer to as Hoen).
This place was a tourist mecca. The Hoen was originally built in around 1200 but has been destroyed many times, and I doubt any of the original is there still. Basically, the King of Bavaria, ill call him Max for short, (now part of germany but once its own kingdom) found this sight and thought he was rebuild it. This was in the 1800s, so not really that long ago, but its built in the romantic style of the renaissance so it looks like it was built back in the original days. We did a tour of it, and whilst not that exciting was quite an insight into the lifestyle that the rich royals can live even when they are kings of a not so big country.
However the intriguing story comes from that of Max's sons, one called Otto,
and the other, the interesting one, called Lucias. Otto grew up to be quite sick and so his family is not much of a story, and he was the younger of the two, so thats his story. However, Lucias - he was the eldest so when Max died Lucias became King at the age of 19. Living in the Hoen, he started building 'fairytale' castles around Bavaria, and spent ALL OF THE FAMILIES PRIVATE MONEY on building these castles. He built three had had plans for a forth until his famous story came to an end ...that in a minute. So he built these lavish castles, the third one he started to build was the News. The News was a massive fairytale castle just down the road from his parents castle the Hoen. He lived in the Hoen still with his Mother (hmmmm) and would watch the building of the News from his bedroom on a telescope. The News was the most lavish over the top castle you will ever see - for a private home anyway. It took 17 years to build this castle... well one third o the castle would you believe - but when the King was
40, he had run the family broke building this ridiculous building, and they were all a bit peeved off. This is where my opnion will come into the story - I will tell the story how I believe it occured. The family got a psychiatrist to decare the King INSANE and he was arrested and taken to a castle near a lake near Munich. The next day, he went for a walk by the lake with the psychiatrist, along the lake, and they were both found dead!!! apparently its still all a mystery - but i think its pretty obvious that this clearly insane King (when you see the castle you will understand what I mean) was soo peeved about being taken from the throne, he killed the psychiatrist and then killed himself.
So the News was left only one third complete and millions of euros later, and he was dead - he never even saw its completion. Dead at 40. The other intriguing part of the story, is the part that none of the tour guides would address - this man in the 1800s was living with his Mother at the age of 40 with no wife and
Schloss Newschwanstein
view from the castle towards Fussen children - hence no heirs to the throne - now does that spell out anything to you all???
The other component to this story - was that the King had a 'favorite composer' who was an older man that was 'a special friend' as the tour guides put it. And the story they put forward was that this older man was a 'father figure' to him since his father died when he was so young (well sorry, but he was 19 when his father died, so what 20 year old needs a father figure) - AND this 'special friend' visited the castle for apparently only a few days, but the King had a special bedroom made for him in the Hoen that still is there that NO ONE ELSE WAS ALOWED TO SLEEP IN apparently. AND, the final piece of the puzzle - the whole famous News castle WAS BUILT TO HONOUR THE COMPOSER... with all the walls painted in murals depicting the stories in the composer's operahs, adn the composer's favourite myths and stories. This whole lavish over the top castle was built by a man, for a man. OH, but he was just some friend that visited the
Hoen once for a couple of days - WHATEVER!!!!!!!!
Now why would they avoid the topic of this 40 year old single king with no heirs who had a special male friend - well perhaps it was because the castles are STILL TO THIS DAY privatley owned by the decendants of the royal family - so even though there is no kingdom anymore, the decendants still get the income from these castles. and I guess perhaps their family reputation has been tarnished by the whole 'MAD KING' as they called him, so they didnt want to add fuel to the fire in this heavily catholic region, and confirm/agree to any comments about the King and his 'special friend'. Who knows, but for me it added more intrigue as the tour guides took you around this ridicolous building - one example of the over the top nature of this building - the Kings bedroom was made of Bavarian Oak - but the extent to the woodcarving and decoration in this room and to the bed itself - took 14 woodworkers 4 years to complete - JUST ONE ROOM!!! I mean, how ridiculous. The throne room he built for himself had
Schloss Hoenschwangau
Kellie infront of the castle 2 million mosaic tiles laid by hand on the floor depictiing 'nature' and a chandelier that weighed thousands of pounds. The throne was on order and was to be solid gold - when he died the family cancelled all the expensive orders he had made. You have to see it to beleive it, but this whole fairytale castle was built like a fairy tale, and in a romantic style that was 600 years old - so even for when it was built it was totally ridiculous - I can understand why the family were so peeved that this crazy man had spent all their money on these things, and had planned a forth castle too. boy oh boy.
So the Newschwanstein castle is still left unfinished, left furnished and completed exactly as it was when he died (except for the cafes etc downstairs) - and that is what is fascinating about this castle. Not just the castle itself and its lavishness, bu tthe story of the King, and that it has been left unfinshed until this day. Having said this, with it costing about €10 to get in, and with what we estimated was the number of people going
Schloss Hoenschwangau
Craig infront of the castle through the place, the castle today, even only one thrid finsihed, is earning is family owners €19million per annum (by our estimates) - so thats a nice little income for the decendants, probably tax free, that they dont have to do anything for. Why finish the castle when its earning that even only one third finished.
Definately worth checking out.
We then headed north, and decided we had had enough castle so got back on the autobahn, and suddenly Craig was in the 'zone'. he kept driving and driving and driving, and we ended up in northern Germany by 9pm. We stopped and slept in a service station car park (allowed to in Germany - with the trucks) - and had a fantastic sleep We will be in Amsterdam in 4 hours, so a whole day earlier - we pretty much bypassed the whole of Germany, which probably is not the best thing, but we have just seen so much during this holiday, that if we mis a few tourist things, we're ok with that.
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Mathias from Germany
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You got it mixed up
You got it mixed up. The castle which you did call Hoenschwangau on you pixtures, is actually called Neuschwanstein. And the other one is called Hohenschwangau.