It didn’t come across the mind of the king who built the Neuschwanstein castle of Germany that he will live no single day inside his dream castle. The fairy-tale styled castle was intended to be the hideaway of King Ludwig IIof Bavaria who was allegedly thought to be draining the public money for his dream castle, but instead it became a main touristic attraction seven weeks after his mysterious drowning.
The Neuschwanstein castle construction started in 1869, unusually, for the pure pleasure of the king who died before seeing his dream castle become whole. Weeks after the king’s death in 1886 the castle was opened for public who became able to see his intended refuge away from public life.
Today, the castle located73 miles southwest of Munich attracts nearly 1.4 million people visit it annually explore the castle and enjoy the view from the castle that became one of the most popular of all the palaces and castles in Europe.
Despite that the castle was built during the middle agesbut the building was provided with the most modern technology at the time. The rooms and the royal residence were equipped with hot air central heating, the kitchen had hot and cold water, and the toilets had an automatic flushing system. In addition, the king even used an electric bell system to summon his servants, there were telephones on the third and fourth floors and meals were brought upstairs through a lift!
Visiting the Neuschwanstein castle:
Visiting the interior of the castle is only allowed as a part of a guided tour that last for nearly 30 minutes. Available languages for tours are German and English while audio toursare available in Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, Czech, Slovenian, Russian, Polish, Chinese (Mandarin), Portuguese, Hungarian, Greek, Dutch, Korean, Thai and Arabic. Every Wednesday, wheelchairs tours are held.
The castle is open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. from April to October and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. from October 16th to March.
