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MAD
KING LUDWIG'S PLEASURE PALACE
Schloss Linderhof & Grotto
The
father built a country and the son built houses. King Maximillian II
would take his young son Ludwig on
hunting trips into the Bavarian
Ammergau Alps where he had his country residence the "Königshäuschen".
A master politician as well as hereditary king, Maximillian II had taken
a collection of fractious Bavarian fiefdoms and formed them into a modern
successful
thriving state. When his son, born at the summer palace in Munich
(see Nymphenburg
Palace) came to the throne, he saw himself not unlike the
French “sun-king” Loius
XIV, an absolute monarch who needed palaces to establish his image. His
first
palace was
Linderhof,
reconstructed
from his father’s hunting lodge into a magnificent yet “intimate” personal
monument.
Built
in rococco baroque opulance, the hall of mirrors dazzles with echoes
of reflected golden candelabras. The palace, which was Ludvig II’s
favorite and the only one actually finished in his lifetime, was
an inpiration of Versailles. He would later build a more exacting replica,
the Herrenchiemsee
Palace on Lake Chiemsee on the other side of Bavaria and the nearby medieval
revival castle Schloss Neuschschwanstein (see Ludwig's
Fantasy Castle Neuschwanstein)
from which Walt Disney got the inspiration for his Sleeping Beauty
castle at Anaheim’s
Disneyland
King Ludwig would stay up nights and sleep in the day, so his bedroom
took prominence as his place of “work”, with appropriate
homages to his French sun king idol. The formal gardens of
Linderhof are some of the
most beautiful in Germany, fronted by the Naiad Fountain with water
nymphs and the high spouting fountain, and dotted with moorish
style pavilions.
Linderhof is perhaps most famous for it’s “Grotto”,
an artificial creation based on an illustration from a scene in Wagner’s “Tannhauser”.
The grotto was illuminated in changing colors and Ludwig liked to
be rowed across the water in a golded shell shaped boat. It might
be argued that “Mad” Ludwig’s extravagant
spending on his palace projects, expressing his own God granted monarchical
right rather than focusing on the prosperity of his people, might
be one of the causes which led inexhorably to WWI and the following rise
of Naziism, inspiring Hitler’s Wagnerian ideas of racial destiny,
but it cannot be denied King Ludwig II’s scholss building left
behind a boon to modern day tourism.
Visits to Schloss Linderhof and Schloss Neuschwanstein acn be made with
regular bus tours
from Munich (see Munich
Sight-Seeing Tours) and can
be arranged through most hotels and the tourism offices. By car Linderhof
is about an hour drive from Muncih and Neuschwanstein is about
40 mintues from Linderhof near
Schwangau with a little dip into Austria, sure you can take a bus
tour, but a drive through the beautiful
alpine countryside of Bavaria, dotted with gingerbread
lodgings is why God invented rental cars. The Ettal Abbey Basilica
monastery (see Ettal
Abbey Baroque Bavaria) is a short drive away though
Oberammergau home of the famous Passion Play (see Oberammergau
Passion 2010). © Bargain
Travel Europe
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SEE
ALSO:
MURNAU
CASTLE ART MUSEUM
KALTENBERG
KNIGHTS TOURNAMENT
MUNICH'S
ENGLISCHER GARTEN
WINE
AND SAUSAGE FESTIVAL - GERMAN WINE ROAD
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