Neuschwanstein

We visited the Neuschwanstein castle next (New Swan Stone Castle). As said before, this was the brainstorm of the 'Fairy Tale King': Ludwig 2, who took great interest in opera and also loved the works of someone called Richard Wagner. So he actually built this castle in honour of the writer. i.e. many rooms/pictures of art were based on the writer's works.

King Ludwig 2

Well, construction of the castle began in 1869 and 17 years later, Ludwig was declared mad... somehow, then also somehow drowned in a pond with his doctor somewhere... And somehow, the castle was also never completed... even after 17 years. (although not unexpected given its size and Ludwig's ambition)

We arrived at the castle after taking a bus ride up a hill. We didn't know much about fogs till we came here. Visibility was less than 10m. We followed Rick Steve's guide up the Mary's Bridge which supposedly will give us a 'wunderbar' (wonderful) view of the castle and ended up with this:

See the castle? Does it remind you of some 'ghost in photo' shot? (Left of my head)

'What it should have been view' from Mary Bridge

We went into the castle following a guided tour and I was really awed by the amount of work that was put into the castle. For e.g. his bed's canopy alone took 4 carpenters 2 years to complete (if i didn't hear wrongly). The walls were augmented with golden carvings from floor to ceiling. Art was everywhere and rooms were enormous. This really felt like a castle and with the amount of effort required, it's no wonder it wasn't completed after 17 years.

Managed to find this online photo of the canopy, a little small though

I must say i quite enjoyed the castle visit as it looked Disney-like. Moreover, the grandeur of it all gave me the impact of a true castle. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't very clear. I guess the best shot of the castle we had was this entrance shot....
The rest were lost in the fog..

We didn't take the weather into account while planning our itenary and therefore had to make our way away from the castles the next day. (though the next day wasn't so clear anyway). Our next stop was Linderhof castle (an hour's drive from the castles we were seeing, but another one by King Ludwig 2..