Construction began in 1869 under King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who wanted to escape court life and build himself a retreat inspired by medieval German legends and the operas of Richard Wagner. The castle was never meant to be a fortress — it was a deeply personal homage to a romanticised Middle Ages.
Rather than an architect, Ludwig hired Christian Jank, a theatrical stage designer, to draw the first sketches. Engineers Eduard Riedel and Georg von Dollmann translated those drawings into a real castle perched 200 m above the Pöllat gorge.
When Ludwig died mysteriously in 1886, only 14 rooms were finished. Seven weeks later the castle was opened to the public to recoup costs — and it quickly became one of the most visited monuments in Europe. Today it welcomes more than 1.4 million visitors a year and inspired Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle.
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