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The Neuschwanstein castle in Germany’s Bavaria, perhaps best known for inspiring Walt Disney’s fairytale castles, has been named a World Heritage site, the UN cultural agency announced on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Three other royal residences, also constructed in the late 19th Century under the famously arts-obsessed King Ludwig II of Bavaria, were also added to the coveted list: Herrenchiemsee, Linderhof and Schachen.<\/p>\n
Neuschwanstein, perched on a rocky, 200m-high Alpine crag, is Germany’s most visited castle, with almost 1.5 million people flocking there every year.<\/p>\n
“A fairytale comes true for our fairytale castles: We are #WorldHeritage!” Bavaria’s governor, Markus Soeder, wrote on X after the announcement.<\/p>\n
Neuschwanstein combines an idealised medieval exterior with architectural techniques considered cutting-edge at the time.<\/p>\n
Its main rooms are adorned with paintings of German and Nordic legends, the same stories that inspired composer Richard Wagner, for whom Ludwig was a generous patron.<\/p>\n
Peter Seibert of the Bavarian Castles Administration (BSV) told AFP that the UNESCO listing “is a very great responsibility, but also recognition… for the work we have done so far in preservation”.<\/p>\n
Philippe, a 52-year-old visitor from Canada, was surprised that the castle was not already a World Heritage Site.<\/p>\n
“We’re lucky to still be able to experience this,” he said, calling the listing “a very good idea”.<\/p>\n
Herrenchiemsee meanwhile evokes a Versailles in miniature on a lake between Munich and Salzburg, an homage to absolute monarch Louis XIV of France, whom Ludwig admired.<\/p>\n
Indeed Ludwig nicknamed Herrencheimsee “Meicost-Ettal”, an anagram of Louis XIV’s alleged aphorism “L’Etat, c’est moit” (“I am the state”).<\/p>\n
– ‘Part of Bavarian identity’ –<\/p>\n
The third site in the UNESCO listing is the small castle of Linderhof, completed in 1878, the only one to have been finished in Ludwig’s lifetime.<\/p>\n
It mixes elements of French Baroque architecture from the reign of Louis XIV with touches of the Rococo style developed in southern Germany.<\/p>\n
Its park boasts an artificial cave inspired by Wagner’s opera Tannhaeuser, 90 metres long and up to 14 metres high, which houses a grotto of Venus and was designed as a personal retreat for Ludwig.<\/p>\n
The electric lighting system used in the cave was state of the art at the time, with glass discs used to illuminate the grotto in different colours.<\/p>\n
The last of the four sites on the list is Schachen, a royal house in the style of a large Swiss chalet, where Ludwig liked to celebrate the saint’s day of his namesake St Louis on August 25.<\/p>\n
It is located at 1,800 metres above sea level, not far from Neuschwanstein.<\/p>\n
The four castles have become “part of Bavarian identity” says Seibert, “iconic and perfectly embedded in a beautiful landscape”.<\/p>\n
Ironically, while Ludwig’s architectural legacy is today a source of pride in Bavaria — not to mention tourist revenue — they were part of the reason for his own downfall.<\/p>\n
The ruinous construction costs of the lavish residences led the Bavarian government to depose him, declaring him insane.<\/p>\n
Interned in Berg Palace, he died shortly afterwards in mysterious circumstances at Lake Starnberg.<\/p>\n
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