13 Facts About Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein Castle is a 19th-century historicist palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Fussen in southwest Bavaria, Germany.

Neuschwanstein Castle was intended as a private residence for the King, until he died in 1886.

The confusing result is that Hohenschwangau and Schwanstein have effectively swapped names: Hohenschwangau Castle replaced the ruins of Schwanstein Castle, and Neuschwanstein Castle replaced the ruins of the two Hohenschwangau Castles.

Palace-building projects similar to Neuschwanstein had been undertaken earlier in several of the German states and included Hohenschwangau Castle, Lichtenstein Castle, Hohenzollern Castle, and numerous buildings on the River Rhine such as Stolzenfels Castle.

The inspiration for the construction of Neuschwanstein came from two journeys that Ludwig took in 1867 – one in May to the reconstructed Wartburg near Eisenach, another in July to the Chateau de Pierrefonds, which Eugene Viollet-le-Duc was transforming from a ruined castle into a historistic palace.

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Characteristic of Neuschwanstein Castle's design are theatre themes: Christian Jank drew on coulisse drafts from his time as a scenic painter.

The resulting dispute with the House of Wittelsbach led to a split in 1923: King Ludwig's palaces including Neuschwanstein Castle fell to the state and are now managed by the Bavarian Palace Department, a division of the Bavarian finance ministry.

Nearby Hohenschwangau Neuschwanstein Castle fell to the Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds, whose revenues go to the House of Wittelsbach.

Effect of the Neuschwanstein Castle ensemble is highly stylistic, both externally and internally.

Unlike "real" castles, whose building stock is in most cases the result of centuries of building activity, Neuschwanstein was planned from the inception as an intentionally asymmetric building, and erected in consecutive stages.

Since the kitchen in Neuschwanstein Castle is situated three stories below the dining room, it was impossible to install a wishing table as at Linderhof Palace and Herrenchiemsee.

Neuschwanstein Castle is a global symbol of the era of Romanticism.

In 1977, Neuschwanstein Castle became the motif of a West German definitive stamp, and it appeared on a €2 commemorative coin for the German series in 2012.