And they weren’t just your regular, dime a dozen keeps or citadels, this man dreamed big. Epic. The most famous is unfinished Neuschwanstein, recognizable the world over as the basis for the Disney castle, but he built two others – Herrenchiemsee and Linderhof – which were completed.
Neuschwanstein was dedicated to Wagner and his operas. One room – on the third floor – is a fake cave, stalagmites and stalactites and all, from Tannhauser, and the royal bedroom is decorated with paintings from Tristan and Isolde, along with years’ worth of master carpentry.
I’m sure that as a politician he was a problem. He had a habit of leaving one castle and fleeing to another whenever someone important wanted to talk to him. He did not like to see people. One of his dining rooms has a table that can be cranked down into the kitchen below so he would not have to see the servants.
He drowned mysteriously, along with a psychiatrist who was supposed to testify that he was mad and unfit to rule. He was the last king of Bavaria. Six weeks after his death Neuschwanstein was opened to the public, less than half finished.
The opulence and extravagance of this man, the arrogance and wealth are all apparent in his palace – in the individually painted stones, the gold sculpture of Sigfried slaying the dragon, in the beautiful little fake cave with a window and gilded reading chair looking out on the courtyard.
He doesn’t seem like someone to pity. And we felt so bad for him. Because he never saw the castle finished – because no one tried to finish it for him. Because there is a painting of what would have been his fourth castle on the wall of a throne room without a throne. A tiny silhouette of his next dream.
I don’t know whether he was aware that his eccentricities would make him into a modern fairytale. He certainly had the sense of drama for something like that. I doubt though, that he expected the end. The tragedy. But perhaps he did. He did love Wagner after all.
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