It's a real life Disney castle!
this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2025
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I've been there several times! I used to live about a 4-hour drive away from that castle.
It is absolutely gorgeous! And not just the castle, but the whole region. Bavaria is one of my favorite places in the whole world, and I've traveled all over the globe. If I could pick any place to build my dream home and retire, Bavaria is very high on that list. King Ludwig II picked a perfect spot for his fairytale castle.
He wasn't smart about how he built it, though. His country was going broke and rather than deal with his subjects, he just fucked off to the corner of Bavaria to make a fantasy castle based on the works of his favorite composer, Richard Wagner.
He was so hated by his people for funneling all his money into this castle instead of helping them to survive, that one day he "mysteriously" drowned in a tiny little stream out back behind the castle. Construction on the castle stopped immediately and they turned it into a tourist attraction to generate money for the kingdom. The economy rebounded and it's been a tourist attraction ever since, so no one's officially lived there (the royal family had a summer home next door) and it's not 100% complete inside.
Still, it's a gorgeous castle and I highly recommend checking it out if you're in the area. The famous shot of the castle from the back/side is taken from a suspended foot bridge behind the castle. Definitely make the hike through the woods to see that view! The whole valley below the castle is beautiful to drive through as well.
Another interesting fact while we're on the subject. All the American stereotypes of Germany (beer, bratwurst, lederhosen, yodeling, etc.) is actually Bavarian culture, not German culture. Germans outside of Bavaria get really insulted if you bring up these stereotypes with them.
Bavaria has a very rich and interesting culture. They wanted to split off from Germany and become their own country once upon a time, but then Hitler decided to make their capital, Munich, into his headquarters for the Third Reich. Then the whole place was bombed to hell during WWII.
After the war, when Germany had to pay to rebuild Europe, most of the money came from Bavaria, which was an extremely rich region at the time. So they were bombed back to the stone age AND broke. Bavaria had to settle as a region of Germany instead of becoming their own independently wealthy country.
Whoever told you that is most likely exactly the kind of nationalist Bavarian with a superiority complex that annoys the rest of us Germans.
The reparations of Germany was paid for mostly by East Germany, and we are talking up to 97-98 % of all reparations. So no way Bavarians paid most of it. Source (under the headline Wert der Entnahmen aus SBZ und DDR) is sadly only German book and Wikipedia, not in the English one.
And Bavaria profited from the separation of Germany, since a lot of companies in the now soviet controlled eastern sector went to Bavaria. For example Audi or Allianz. Which then of course helped during the rebuilding.
But that is just what annoyed me enough to write this comment. Otherwise I fully agree, there is a lot of nice stuff and friendly people in Bavaria.
Thanks for the info! I was told on a Munich tour once that Hitler gutted the finances and resources of Bavaria for WWII, then after the war ended, what was left went toward reparations. They claimed that Bavaria basically footed the bill for most of Germany, during and after the war, leaving them broke and dependent.
I guess my tour guide didn't know what he was talking about.
Yeah I expected something like that. In my experience Tour guides are really great at telling a story and entertain us, that's their job. But how true those stories are... =)
That's a really interesting comment thanks! Him accidentally drowning in a dribble of water says a lot...
It's indeed very interesting, especially knowing that he was abducted by the aristocracy in secret and placed in a mental facility for being gay and not having offspring, so him drowning in a lake was rather the game of power and not the wish of the folk, who actually liked him. The root comment spews unbelievable nonsense.
Yeah, his official physician pronounced him dead from accidental drowning. But it was only a couple feet of standing water, so... 🤷
Hang on, we still want to split off 😝
Interesting comment! I knew most of that, but didn't realize how close Bavaria came to independence.
I'm hoping to visit southern Deutschland later this summer, and go all the way from the Schwarzwald to the Königsee. Everyone seems to say Neuschwanstein is a tourist trap so I intend to skip it (don't care for crowds anyway), but yeah the Füssen area looks great for a hike.
You still think it's worth visiting the Schloss itself, when I could be spending that time on the Bodensee or atop the Zugspitze?
Remember that until 1871, there was no such thing as Germany. There was the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, but that was about as much a country as the commonwealth is a country nowadays. It was a loose connection of about a dozen or so smaller nations that were in constant struggle and conflict with each other.
It was only in 1871 that Germany as a country was formed, more specifically, the German Empire. From 1871 to 1918 it was a monarchy, and after WW1 was lost, they reformed as a somewhat democratic country, the Weimarer Republic, which existed until 1933 when the Nazis took over and created the Third Empire, aka nazi Germany. After that it was reformed as the Second Republic, which lasts until today.
So at the time when Hitler came to power, Bavaria had only been part of Germany for 62 years. So at that time there were lots of older Bavarians who grew up in the independent Kingdom of Bavaria. Gaining "independence" wasn't about an oppressed local minority gaining their freedom as it was about old people longing for their childhood.
About a month ago I watched a 2-hour video covering the entire history of the Germany basically from the neolithic onwards. So yeah I'm aware of the major major geopolitical changes (HRE from its beginnings under Charlemagne, Prussia vs Austria-Hungary, German Empire under Bismarck, etc).
But that wasn't even enough time to cover much about the sentiments of individual regions at different points in history. So that's interesting, thanks!
I'm curious, how much of that longing for the old kingdom was driven by nobility or wealthy merchants vs. the working-class? And how much was economic vs cultural?
I definitely think it's a must-see location. Sure, it's a bit of a tourist trap. But if you spend an afternoon touring the castle and its grounds, then the rest of the day driving around the region, you won't be disappointed. It's such a gorgeous area.
Füssen itself is a beautiful region. My wife and I usually stay in a small local hotel in town there. We've also stayed in a hostel in Munich while visiting Neuschwanstein Castle. They provided a free walking tour of the capital city in the mornings. We spent about 3 hours just walking around Munich, being shown its grand and tragic history. The historical landmarks around town are extremely subtle. We would've completely missed them without a tour guide.
We also toured the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site just outside of Munich. Definitely important to check out if you're into history.