Perspective (the castles)

We were taking advantage of a gorgeous sunny March day in 2024. “Let’s go to Füssen!” my friend suggested. Without a moment’s hesitation, I agreed.

We drove the “17” through Steingaden toward Schwangau. If you’ve been to this corner of Oberbayern, you know how few towns you see. It’s mostly farmland and forests. Green, green everywhere.

The first time the mountains became larger than life, R. slammed on the brakes and pulled into the driveway of one of those farms. “These aren’t our mountains,” she said. Bavarians can be particular about their mountains.

A few miles south, I spied a small chapel off to the side of the road. I didn’t have to beg R. to make that detour. She’d lived in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps her whole life. She’d driven to hockey games in Füssen countless times. And she’d never noticed that chapel.

Only: It turned out not to be a chapel. It’s St. Coloman’s pilgrimage church. You may find inaccurate information online—especially on Facebook—that claims this church is also a monastery. It is not. The monastery connected to that Irish saint is in Melk, Austria, west of Vienna. St. Coloman’s sarcophagus features prominently in the Melk basilica.

So why is an Irish nobleman-turned-saint the focus of a beautiful little pilgrimage church in the middle of a Bavarian meadow? Legend has it that it was on this spot that Colomanus was hanged as a traitor and spy as he traveled from Ireland to Jerusalem. Sainthood came later.

The second time R. slammed on the brakes, her Audi straddled the tiny shoulder and right lane. My photos had to be taken quickly with little regard to composition. But it was worth it. From that precarious position just north of the town of Hohenschwangau, I was able to photograph both Neuschwanstein to my left (east) and Hohenschwangau to my right (west), with an old building related to forestry for both castles between them.

Approaching both castles from this vantage point, they seem at once more accessible, and yet more dominant. The classic photograph of Neuschwanstein, snapped from the Marienbrücke, places it at eye-level. Standing on that bridge, on Marienbrücke, and staring directly at the castle, you can sense the power and supremacy that King Ludwig II exerted over his overtaxed subjects.

From the farmland below, the castles are more visible, but less oppressive, while at the same time, reminding subjects in the valley who’s king and what he can have if only he wants it. It’s clear that Ludwig didn’t build on the mountaintop—the classic photo gives that illusion—but he most certainly built at a much higher level than his father’s nearby castle, Hohenschwangau. Son overshadowing father.

We enjoyed the afternoon in Füssen. Sunshine brought everyone to the pedestrian zone. I will write more about this charming village in a later post. Füssen, not the castles, was our destination for the day.

I asked R. if we could make a stop in Murnau before going home. She drove back roads from Füssen, avoiding the “17.” At a curve in the road, she slammed on the brakes for the third time that day. “Take a picture,” she said. I did, a little puzzled at her insistence. I even walked a few steps forward and took a second picture.

When I returned to the car, she asked, “Did you see it?”

We were in the town of Alterschrofen, driving on a narrow street called Parkstraβe. Typical small town Bavaria. See what? I could only see Hotel Waldmann to our left, with its yellow flapping banners. See what?!

She drove a couple hundred feet further and pulled off on the grass opposite Pension Schwangau. “Now do you see it?!”

Even then, I had to walk up the path a little way, and there it was, in all its romantic medieval baroque glory: Neuschwanstein.

Two kings, father and son, could not be content with governing from their Residenz in Munich. That Wittelsbacher palace was (is) the largest city-based palace anywhere. So the Wittelsbachers built Schloss Nymphenburg, their summer palace, also in Munich. Neither was “enough” for 19th-century Bavarian royalty. Ludwig II embarked on a building spree, one begun by his father with the renovation of Hohenschwangau castle in the 1830s.

Whatever Papa Maximilian II did, Ludwig II had to surpass. Bigger. More gold. More froufrou. He claimed he was building Neuschwanstein, and then Linderhof, then Herrenchiemsee, with personal funds. I have yet to meet a Bavarian who really thinks he did so. Ludwig II saw himself as the successor to France’s gawdy Sun King. Anything Louis XIV and his great-grandson and successor Louis XV could do, Ludwig II could do better. More mirrors! More gold! Bigger gardens! And swans! And Richard Wagner!

Yet—how a person “sees” Neuschwanstein, and Hohenschwangau, totally depends on one’s perspective. From Marienbrücke? In your face, magnificent, regal. From St. Coloman’s and vicinity? Perched in the middle of a mountain, where the mountains dwarf both castles, rendering them all but insignificant.

And from a questionable parking space across from Hotel Waldmann in Alterschrofen? Invisible, obscured by trees and nature. Even a little farther down the road, with Pension Schwangau to the left, the castle remains overshadowed by its surroundings.

The times I’ve lived and worked in Germany, I’ve taken visitors to the castles. I prefer Hohenschwangau. It’s plainer. Although Maximilian II did not “rule” from that place, and although it’s merely a replica of a medieval fortress, there’s still less rococo and baroque busy-ness in that place.

I also found it fascinating that at Hohenschwangau palace, there’s a connection to Texas. Elisabet Ney did the plaster versions of Ludwig II’s bust and statue, completed by a different (German) sculptor after Ney returned to Austin in the late 1880s. Nevertheless the obligatory tour of Hohenschwangau gives credit to Ney. Her Wittelsbacher work can be viewed at the eponymous museum in Austin.

The above is to say: I am not anti-castle.

Ludwig’s construction folly stands as a stark reminder that his end was anything but pleasant. Whether he accidentally drowned or was murdered (assassinated), it’s safe to say no one grieved his passing. My favorite hotel near Starnberg, sitting directly on the lake, has as one of its selling points that the great-great-great-great-great-uncle of the current owners was the fisherman who retrieved the hated king’s body from the lake. [Don’t hold me to the number of “greats.”]

When viewed now by people who can appreciate both history and architecture, Ludwig II’s unused throne rooms remind us that wealth when flaunted breeds hate. Taxes used for personal gain will inevitably foment discontent. A ruler can only keep his foot on the necks of the peasants he rules until he loses all power.

We can look at Neuschwanstein from the Marienbrücke and be impressed by the sight. Or we can see it from the side of the road in Alterschrofen and revel in fresh mountain air and the scent of fir.

Perspective.

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If you map Füssen to Alterschrofen and “drive” it using Google Street View, you can see exactly the perspectives described above. Used in accordance with Google Maps Terms & Conditions.

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