Neuschwanstein Castle (Southern Bavarian: Schloss Neischwanstoa) is a 19th-century historicist palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany.

The palace was commissioned by King Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and in honour of Richard Wagner. Ludwig chose to pay for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing, rather than Bavarian public funds. Construction began in 1869 but was never fully completed.

The castle was intended as a private residence for the King until he died in 1886. It was open to the public shortly after his death. Since then more than 61 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle.  More than 1.3 million people visit annually, with as many as 6,000 per day in the summer.

The municipality of Schwangau lies at an elevation of 800 m (2,620 ft) at the southwest border of the German state of Bavaria. Its surroundings are characterised by the transition between the Alpine foothills in the south (toward 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. 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.

Vorderhohenschwangau Castle and Hinterhohenschwangau Castle sat on a rugged hill overlooking Schwanstein Castle, two nearby lakes (Alpsee and Schwansee), and the village. Separated by only a moat, they jointly consisted of a hall, a keep, and a fortified tower house.

In the nineteenth century only ruins remained of the twin medieval castles, but those of Hinterhohenschwangau served as a lookout place known as Sylphenturm.

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.

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.

 Ludwig called the new palace New Hohenschwangau Castle; only after his death was it renamed Neuschwanstein. 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

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Germany

Hohenschwangau Castle is a 19th-century palace in southern Germany. It was the childhood residence of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and was built by his father, King Maximilian II of Bavaria.

It is located in the German village of Hohenschwangau near the town of Füssen, part of the county of Ostallgäu in southwestern Bavaria, Germany, very close to the border with Austria.

The fortress Schwangau, which was first mentioned in historical records dating from the 12th Century, stood high upon a rock on the site of the present 19th-century Neuschwanstein castle. The knights, later count of Schwangau, were ministerial of the Welfs. Hiltbolt von Schwangau (1195–1254) was a minnesinger. Margareta von Schwangau was the wife of minnesinger Oswald von Wolkenstein.

The present-day Hohenschwangau (“Upper Schwangau”) castle was first mentioned in 1397, though under the name of Schwanstein. Only in the 19th century, the names of the two castles have switched. It was built on a hill above lake Alpsee, below the older fortress.

Between 1440 and 1521 the Lords had to sell their fief with Imperial immediacy to the Wittelsbach dukes of Bavaria but continued to occupy the castle as Burgraves. In 1521 they became owners again but had to sell their land in 1535.

The purchaser, Johann Paumgartner, a wealthy Augsburg merchant, had the lower castle reconstructed by Italian architect Lucio di Spazzi who already worked on the Hofburg, Innsbruck. He kept the exterior walls and the towers but rebuilt the inner parts until 1547, on a floor plan that still today exists.

The older Schwangau fortress however continued to fall into ruins. Paumgartner, after having been elevated to the rank of baron, died in 1549 and his sons sold their new castle to Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria.

The Wittelsbachs used the castle for bear hunting or as a retreat for agnatic princes. In 1743 it was plundered by Austrian troops. In the German mediatization, the county of Schwangau became officially a part of the Electorate of Bavaria in 1803.

King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria sold the castle in 1820. Only in 1832 his grandson Maximilian II of Bavaria, then crown prince, buy it back. In April 1829, he had discovered the historic site during a walking tour and reacted enthusiastically to the beauty of the surrounding area.

He acquired the dilapidated building – then still known as Schwanstein – in 1832, abandoning his father’s wish that he should move into the old castle (Hohes Schloss) in the nearby town of Füssen.

In February 1833, the reconstruction of the castle began, continuing until 1837, with additions up to 1855. The architect in charge, Domenico Quaglio, was responsible for the neogothic style of the exterior design. He died in 1837 and the task was continued by Joseph Daniel Ohlmüller (died 1839) and Georg Friedrich Ziebland.

 More than 90 wall paintings represent the history of Schwangau (literally translated the Swan District), as well as medieval German romances such as Parzival and the story of Lohengrin, the Knight of the Swan, on which Richard Wagner later based his operas Lohengrin of 1848 and Parsifal of 1882, sponsored by Ludwig II who had grown up with these stories at Hohenschwangau.

Hohenschwangau was the official summer and hunting residence of Maximilian, his wife Marie of Prussia, and their two sons Ludwig (the later King Ludwig II of Bavaria) and Otto (the later King Otto I of Bavaria). The young princes spent many years of their adolescence here.

Queen Marie who loved to hike in the mountains created an alpine garden with plants gathered from all over the alps. The King and the Queen lived in the main building and the boys in the annexe.

The Queen’s cousin, Frederick William IV of Prussia, had Stolzenfels Castle on the Rhine rebuilt at the same time in the Gothic Revival style.Hohenschwangau Village on left, Schloss Hohenschwangau on right, as seen from Neuschwanstein Castle.

King Maximilian died in 1864 and his son Ludwig succeeded to the throne, moving into his father’s room in the castle. As Ludwig never married, his mother Marie was able to continue living on her floor during the summer months.

King Ludwig enjoyed living in Hohenschwangau, however mostly in the absence of his disliked mother, especially after 1869 when the building of his own castle, Neuschwanstein, began on the site of the old Schwangau fortress, high above his parent’s castle.

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Germany

Braunfels Castle, a stately home that had been built from a castle built in the 13th century by the Counts of Nassau, served as of about 1260 as the Solms-Braunfels noble family’s residential castle.

After Solms Castle had been destroyed by the Rhenish League of Towns in 1384, Braunfels Castle became the seat of the Counts of Solms. Over the castle’s more than 750-year-long history, building work was done many times.

Particularly worthy of mention is the town and castle fire of 1679, which burnt much of Braunfels and its stately seat down. Both were then built into a Baroque residence.

Braunfels Castle was rebuilt out of materials that were still on hand. The town was given a regular marketplace, which is still preserved today and lies before the town wall.

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