He had 3 castles built while he was reigning. I went to two: Linderhof and Neuschwanstein. Both of these are in the south of Bavaria so I went on a bus to get there.
Linderhof was his private Royal Villa. It was only for retreating as he did no work at this palace. He valued his privacy so much that he had a "magic table" installed so the servants could put his food on the table and hoist it into his room without bothering him. He treated his servants very kindly and paid them well.
We then drove to Neuschwanstein. This was pretty spectacular. This is the castle Disney used to model the sleeping beauty castle after. It was designed in a medieval style but equipped with the latest technology of the day. King Ludwig designed much of it himself but only lived in it for not even 200 days.
Ludwig II kept spending money he didn't have to build his castles so the government declared him mentally unfit to rule and arrested him. A few days later, he and his doctor were found dead in Lake Starnberg. There was no water in his lungs but his doctor had marks around his neck and on his body. There are a lot of theories about why he died but nobody will ever know.
He has the reputation of being "mad" but from everything I learned about him, he seemed kind, intelligent and lonely. It sounds to me that he was gay and unable to do anything about it thus channeled all of his energy to his castles. I guess the world will never know...
This was definitely a highlight of my trip.
Next stop: Vienna!
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