Tuesday, December 18, 2012

What You Need to Know About the Neuschwanstein Castle

By Edmund Crapo


The Neuschwanstein castle is basically a Romanesque castle located in Fussen, in the southwestern area of Bavaria in Germany. The actual castle was originally run by King Ludwig II and it was used as a nice retreat as well as a homage to Richard Wagner and in fact numerous locations within the castle have been inspired by Wagner himself, specially the singers room which is explored on the 3rd floor and also has paintings of different people from the operas of Wagner.

The outside area of this particular castle is made up of a gatehouse, which includes 2 watch towers. The castle's gatehouse brings you through to the courtyard that has 2 levels and the southern part of the court yard has an outstanding view of the scenery and landscapes of the mountain. Around the west part of the courtyard area there's an unfinished formation made of bricks that's going to be a real chapel but was not ever finished. The northern part of the court yard features a building with 3 storeys also known as "the knights house" that was put to use as service areas. The western end of the court yard showcases the "palas" which was basically a hall made up of servants quarters along with Ludwig's stateroom.

The inside of this particular castle was initially meant to hold around 200 rooms, but wasn't completed and only about 15 rooms have been finished in total. This particular castle is composed of the entrance hall, where the floor area is covered with mettlach tiles and it is divided into two lanes. The castle's main hall features groined vaults and beautiful artworks. The actual throne room, which had been built as the "grail hall" of Parsifal and was also created in a one of a kind Byzantine design and style was completed around the same year as Ludwig's death. The actual throne room of the castle is in fact made up of two storeys but it's missing the most essential part of the entire room, and that is the throne. The dining area is also designed with exquisite paintings which in turn represent the "Minnesinger period" and even includes a single dinner table which is actually more than one metre in height. The design of this dining facility was designed by Julius Hoffman.

The bed room was built using a Neo-Gothic style of motif and took a total of 4 and 1/2 years to completely finish and also had around fourteen wood carvers working away at it. The bed room has paintings in the walls which actually depict one of Wagner's stories "Tristan and Isolde" and also a washstand which basically gets its own supply of water from a specific stream that is nicely situated above the castle.

The castle's chapel that's connected with the bedroom was actually dedicated to the French king, King Louis IX and also has amazing paintings showing the life of King Louis IX.

The dressing room of the castle was created with paneling made of oak and showcases paintings which represents the work of Walther von der Vogelweide and Hans Sachs. The living room area is very richly designed and includes an extension chamber called the "swans corner" which was dedicated to the legend of the swan knight - Lohengrin. This amazing castle came with a man-made stalactite cave that was built from oakum and paris plaster and was actually intended to be the space for Wagner to be able to carry out his very own operas which were basically set inside of a cave.

The singer hall of the castle spreads over the whole fourth floor of this structure and was also created and designed by Julius Hoffman and it's also a look-alike of the Minstrel hall of the Wartburg castle. The cooking area was an especially big hall which was held up by only two pillars and also included a standing stove together with a big basin for all fish.

The Neuschwanstein castle remains standing to this day and it attracts guests around the world to see all its remarkable features. The castle sees over six thousand site visitors each day during the summer time and over one million site visitors yearly.




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