The Castle of Neuschwanstein

By Dominick Hilgefort


The castle of Neuschwanstein is a Romanesque castle found in Fussen, south west Bavaria, Germany. This particular castle was actually owned by King Ludwig II and it was used as an actual retreat and a kind of tribute for Richard Wagner and actually numerous locations inside the castle were influenced by Wagner himself, especially the singers room which is found on the third floor and even has paintings of some of the characters taken from some of the operas of Wagner.

The outside of the castle is made up of a gatehouse, which includes a couple of watch towers. The castle's gatehouse brings you through to the actual courtyard which in turn has a couple of levels and in addition the southern area of the court yard offers a magnificent view of the scenery and landscapes of the mountain. At the west part of the courtyard there is an incomplete structure made of brick which was designed to be a real chapel but never was completely finished. The northern end of the court yard features a 3 story building generally known as "the knights house" which had been used as service areas. The west part of this courtyard consists of the "palas" what was actually a real hall featuring servants rooms as well as Ludwig's stateroom.

The interior area of the actual castle was formerly meant to have more than 200 rooms, however it was not ever completely finished and no more than 15 rooms were completed in total. The actual castle consists of the entry hall, where the floor area is actually lined with mettlach tiles and it's divided into a couple of aisles. The main hall of the castle has groined vaults and also fabulous paintings. The throne room, which had been designed as Parsifals "grail hall" and was also designed in a one of a kind Byzantine style was finished in the same year as Ludwig's death. The castle's throne room is actually made up of two storeys but it's missing quite possibly the most essential portion of the entire room, which is the actual throne. The dining room is furnished with stunning paintings which generally represent the "Minnesinger period" and even features a single dinner table which is basically over 1 metre high. The actual interior design of the dining area was actually specially designed by Julius Hoffman.

The bedroom was initially built using a Neo-Gothic type of motif and took approximately four and a half years to finish and even had about fourteen wood carvers working on it. The bed room features wall paintings which actually depict a story of Wagner which is "Tristan and Isolde" and a type of washstand which essentially is provided with its supply of flowing water from a specific stream of water that is located on top of the castle.

The chapel of the castle which is connected with the bedroom was actually dedicated to Louis IX, the French king and includes beautiful paintings dedicated to the actual life of this particular king.

The dressing room of the castle as designed with paneling made of oak and also includes works of art representing the artworks of Walther von der Vogelweide and Hans Sachs. The living room area is extremely ornately decorated and additionally includes an additional room or space referred to as the "swans corner" which was actually dedicated to the legend of the swan knight - Lohengrin. This magnificent castle came with an artificial cave with stalactites which was constructed out of paris and oakum plaster and was actually designed to be the setting for Wagner to be able to carry out his own operas which were generally set inside of a cave.

The singer hall of the castle is found on the whole 4th floor of this castle and was actually created and designed by Julius Hoffman and is a look-alike of Wartburg castle's Minstrel hall. The kitchen of the castle was an especially big space which was held up by a couple of columns or pillars and additionally included a standing stove and also a big basin for fish.

The Neuschwanstein castle is still standing up to this day and it actually draws in travelers worldwide to see all of its spectacular elements. The Neuschwanstein castle receives roughly six thousand visitors every day in the summertime and around a million visitors yearly.




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