
Now for background history on this mystical mountain castle, Neuschwanstein was the dream of the Bavarian King Ludwig the Second. The King was a friend and great admirer of Richard Wagner and drew inspiration from Wagner's operas for styling this dream "Palas" of Bavaria. After years of sketches and drafting how the castle would look, where to build it and how to build it, the end product resulted in this Romanesque Revival fortress set atop a rocky outcrop above his parent's castle in southern parts of the kingdom. With the "swanstone" white marble coming from a nearby quarry to fit the majority of the building project, other stones such as the white marble for the windows came from Salzburg, Austria, and the sandstone came from the neighboring kingdom, Württemberg. The cornerstone was set on the fifth of September 1872 and then the construction ensued on the colossal project until the "topping out" ceremony in 1880, denoting the completion of the structural work but the undertaking of the interior would remain unfinished even to this day. At the time of the mysterious death of King Ludwig II, the royal living spaces along with a few corridors and halls were completed. Having only spent 11 nights in his dream refuge from the outside world, the castle's construction would go on but lacking the grandeur that the Ludwig would have desired. The king had used his private funds to build this dream sanctuary of his rather than using the public funds of Bavaria, but had to resort to taking loans as revisions to the construction led to more costs than anticipated. In the end, King Ludwig II had accrued a debt of 14 million marks in 1886 and the one remedy the royal family thought of to pay of the debts was to open the majestic castle to the world which was the one thing the King was trying to escape.
I visited the castle in early October, and in the time that I waited in my "express" lane for the tour, I would estimate eight groups ranging from 25 to 40 people would enter in the halls of the castle. With that being said, millions had passed through the Square Tower's massive door to venture into the fairy tale castle among the towering Bavarian Alps.
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