We boarded the coach to carry us from Bad Kohlgrub to the Danube.
Vicki and I found two seats among the group. It was a warm crowd, members of a Methodist congregation from somewhere in the deep South, just a peach short of the Georgia line. They were all aglow from their Oberammergau experience of the night before. We listened to conversations about the music, the acting, and the pageantry of this world-famous passion play. The buzz made me feel sorry that I had missed it.
This pilgrimage church near Schwangau, Bavaria, was built to honor the memory of an Irishman by the name of Koloman. His story doesn’t end well. Koloman rested on this spot on the way to the Holy Land in the year 1012. He didn’t reach his destination. He was mistaken for a spy and because he couldn’t speak German, he was unable to defend himself. He was hanged by the neck.
The contrast between their Carolina drawl and the bark of our German guide was lurching.
“Good morning!” she chirped into the microphone.
It was a sonniger Morgen indeed. The sunshine was breaking through the clouds. The air was crisp and cool.
She laid out the plan.
Our midday destination was a castle located along the German-Austrian border. Schloss Neuschwanstein may not be a household phrase, but many recognize its outline. It was featured in the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and cast as the icon of Walt Disney Pictures. Hollywood has been sprinkling pixie dust over these spires for as long as any of us can remember.
View to Schloss Neuschwanstein from the tourist strip.
We unloaded on the tourist strip below. Our guide gave us free time to walk, shop, and eat some lunch before an appointment with the horse-drawn carriages. These would pull us up the mountain.
More dog than bun is a good problem to have. Sausage is everywhere around here.
Loaded on the carriage and ready to roll. Our Viennese guide commented on this driver’s dialect: “Now he’s real Bavarian.” I’m not sure it was a compliment.
At the top we unloaded and walked up the ramp to the castle courtyard. There, we queued for a tour.
No backpacks were allowed. “And no photos inside,” we were told.
The cylindrical towers stretched high above our heads. The structure was made of brick, marble, and white limestone.
We walked through portions of the castle and experienced its incredible story.*
Oddly enough the castle was conceived in the likeness of a medieval structure, but in a time when such “defensive” positions had slipped into obsolescence. Work began in 1868 and was never finished. The ruins of two “real” castles from the medieval period were flattened in order to make way for this fantasy one. The responsible party was King Ludwig II of Bavaria. “Mad Ludwig” was a reclusive young monarch, the original imagineer who preferred a make-believe world to the real one. The castle design had is origin in operatic stage sets. The king was no musician, but the ultimate fan-boy of his contemporary, the German composer Richard Wagner.
Ludwig identified with the figure of Lohengrin, one of Wagner’s characters and a knight of the Holy Grail legend.** The knight traveled on a boat pulled by swans. Swans would become the motif of the place; even its adopted name, Neuschwanstein (pronounced: Noish-VAN-Stine), means “New Swan Stone.”
The courtyard of Schloss Neuschwanstein.
Ludwig was intimately involved in the design and decor of the castle, drawing upon traditional aspects of medieval structures, yet upgrading these with modern technological advances. As an example, iron columns, beams, and brackets were used for critical supports in places where conventional stonework was impossible. The king’s regular interventions and demands for alterations meant that the castle would never be finished. Only 15 of the planned 200 rooms or halls were completed.
Unlike its medieval predecessors, Ludwig’s Tomorrowland had all of the luxuries of the 19th century, including a heating system, flushing toilets, a push-button communication system, and a telephone (even if it only communicated with the structures in the valley below).
Wikipedia offers this view to Ludwig’s throne room. It is clearly Byzantine and Romanesque. You can find the image here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Throne_room%2C_Neuschwanstein_Castle%2C_Upper_Bavaria%2C_Germany-LCCN2002696256.jpg (accessed 6/25/2022).
My own interests in the architecture and symbols of the Bible Lands drew me to Ludwig’s throne room. Built in Byzantine style, it was capped by a dome and floored in mosaic. Plants and animals were featured on the earth below while the sun and stars flashed overhead. The royal throne, planned but unbuilt, was to sit on a dias at one end of the room. Ludwig pictured himself suspended between heaven and earth. He was the “Holy Grail” of this theater, backed by paintings of canonized kings and overshadowed by the figure of Christ.
Ludwig was a young, fragile, and tormented soul. He struggled with homosexuality, struggled for control of his kingdom, struggled with his finances, and in the end was deemed unfit to rule. He died shortly thereafter in mystery and infamy. His body, as well as that of his psychiatrist, was discovered floating in a nearby lake. Despite his reputation as a strong swimmer, he had drowned.
Upon his death, his fairy castle was opened to the world. Built as a private retreat it became a public spectacle. It remains so even now, accommodating up to 6,000 visitors every day.
I found this amazing aerial view to Ludwig’s castle here: https://wantsee.world/neuschwanstein-castle-deu/ (accessed 6/24/2022).
Epilogue: The 20th century witnessed the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler. He too was a romantic and a fan-boy of Richard Wagner. One of Hitler’s dreams was to create the largest museum of the world, the Führermuseum. He amassed a priceless collection of looted artwork, artifacts, and objects. Where could such a priceless collection be stored? At Schloss Neuschwanstein of course!
As World War II ground to a close, the German SS planned to blow the castle up along with its contents. Fortunately, this never happened. When the castle was finally emptied of its Nazi treasure—almost exactly one-hundred years after the birth of “Mad” Ludwig—Hitler’s “dream museum” required 49 train cars to carry the collection away and another year to unpack. The effort to shape a world from the fabric of myth didn’t end so well for Hitler either.
The forest below the castle. Ludwig wrote of the site “The location is one of the most beautiful to be found, holy and unapproachable” . . . “I am looking forward very much to living there.”*** Ludwig worked on the castle for 17 years but lived in it for only 172 days.
Vicki and I walked through the forest back down to the road. We listened to the birdsong and to the trickle of a mountain stream. It was hard to imagine sad endings in this beautiful place. I wondered: is it ironic — or redemptive — to think that Walt Disney chose this castle as an icon? He too, after all, was a mythmaker and an imagineer of happy endings.
Footnote for sermonizers: some folks I know run on and on about the “power” of story. Story does have power, but it also has a very real ceiling.
Walt Disney, Mickey Mouse, and the Snow White Castle at Disneyland, Anaheim, California. Image from https://www.encirclephotos.com/image/walt-disney-and-mickey-mouse-partners-statue-at-disneyland-in-anaheim-california/ (accessed 6/23/2022).
*I found this article helpful: “Schloss Neuschwanstein: A Romantic Interpretation of the Middle Ages” by Megan Knox. You can find it here: https://www.uwo.ca/visarts/research/2009-10/bat_2010/mk.html
**Lohengrin is a three-act opera written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The German composer was sponsored and idolized by Ludwig. If you’ve ever heard the “The Bridal Chorus” or the song,“Here Comes the Bride,” you’ve sampled a piece of this famous opera.
***Quote drawn from here: https://www.thediscoverer.com/blog/the-dramatic-history-behind-neuschwanstein-castle/XvHyVpKgiwAG5alw (accessed 6/25/2022).
On the balcony of Schloss Neuschwanstein.
Bible Land Explorers will be returning to the Mediterranean in September of 2023. From the port of Athens, we depart for Ephesus and Patmos, then sail for the Holy Land. There, we disembark for day trips to Jerusalem and the Galilee. Following these experiences, we return to Greece, via ports in Cyprus—Limassol and Paphos—and the spectacular volcanic island of Santorini. Onboard lectures give focus to life in the biblical world. English-speaking guides will meet us at each port. We partner with Norwegian Cruise Line for a “mid-sized ship” with a “bigger experience.” For more details click the link here.