Fairytale Castle Neuschwanstein - a photo on Flickriver

            Neuschwanstein Castle (German: Schloss Neuschwanstein, pronounced [nɔʏˈʃvaːnʃtaɪn]) is a 19th-century Romanesque Revival palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as an homage to Richard Wagner. Ludwig paid for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing, not with Bavarian public funds (see below).

The palace was intended as a personal refuge for the reclusive king, but it was opened to the paying public immediately after his death in 1886.[1] Since then over 60 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle.[2] More than 1.3 million people visit annually, with up to 6,000 per day in the summer.[3] The palace has appeared prominently in several movies and was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty's Castle[4] and later, similar structures.

The municipality of Schwangau lies at an elevation of 800 m (2,620 ft) at the south west border of the German state of Bavaria. Its surroundings are characterized by the transition between the Alpine foothills in the south (towards the nearby Austrian border) and a hilly landscape in the north that appears flat by comparison.

In the Middle Ages, three castles overlooked the villages. One was called Schwanstein Castle.[nb 1] In 1832, Ludwig's father King Maximilian II of Bavaria bought its ruins to replace them with the comfortable neo-Gothic palace known as Hohenschwangau Castle. Finished in 1837, the palace became his family's summer residence, and his elder son Ludwig (born 1845) spent a large part of his childhood here.[citation needed]

Vorderhohenschwangau Castle and Hinterhohenschwangau Castle[nb 2] sat on a rugged hill overlooking Schwanstein Castle, two nearby lakes (Alpsee and Schwansee), and the village. Separated only by a moat, they jointly consisted of a hall, a keep, and a fortified tower house.[5] In the 19th century only ruins remained of the medieval twin castles, but those of Hinterhohenschwangau served as a lookout place known as Sylphenturm.[6]

The ruins above the family palace were known to the crown prince from his excursions. He first sketched one of them in his diary in 1859.[7] When the young king came to power in 1864, the construction of a new palace in place of the two ruined castles became the first in his series of palace building projects.[8] Ludwig called the new palace New Hohenschwangau Castle; only after his death was it renamed Neuschwanstein.[9] 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.

Neuschwanstein embodies both the contemporaneous architectural fashion known as castle romanticism (German: Burgenromantik), and Ludwig II's immoderate enthusiasm for the operas of Richard Wagner.

In the 19th century, many castles were constructed or reconstructed; often with significant changes to make them more picturesque. 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.[10] The inspiration for the construction of Neuschwanstein came from two journeys in 1867 — one in May to the reconstructed Wartburg near Eisenach,[11] another in July to the Château de Pierrefonds, which Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was transforming from a ruined castle into a historistic palace.[12][nb 3]

The king saw both buildings as representatives of a romantic interpretation of the Middle Ages as well as the musical mythology of his friend Richard Wagner. Wagner's operas Tannhäuser and Lohengrin had made a lasting impression on him.[13]

In February 1868, Ludwig's grandfather Ludwig I died, freeing the considerable sums that were previously spent on the abdicated king's appanage.[8][nb 4] This allowed Ludwig II to start the architectural project of building a private refuge in the familiar landscape far from the capital Munich, so that he could live out his idea of the Middle Ages.

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Taken in: Deutschland / Bayern / Schwangau (show map)

Taken on: March 16, 2013

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Camera: Olympus E-5, f/5.6, 1/400 sec, 123mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Olympus E-5
Aperture:	f/5.6
Exposure Time:	0.003 sec (1/400)
Focal Length:	123mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	On, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Center-weighted average
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	OLYMPUS Viewer 2 1.43W
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