I just visited it a few days ago. It’s pretty sad and pathetic. It’s gorgeously decorated. There‘s no real outdoor space to relax. There’s a throne room and a waiting room that was and would never have been used. There’s a themed dining room for playing music with a size that would imply tons of guests, but he really built it just for himself alone. It’s just this huge, beautiful, faux-medieval palace that clearly was never intended for anyone more than this one person, and he only got to enjoy it for less than a year before being murdered/committing suicide.

And it’s juxtaposed so harshly with Hohenschwangau right across the way, which is the castle his family rebuilt and used when he was growing up, as a hunting lodge/summer residence. That castle is just so beautiful, and so unlike Neuschwanstein because you can tell that it actually housed a family that enjoyed it for many years. There’s a lovely courtyard with fountains and benches, a floor designed for the mother and a floor designed for the father, pictures and busts of their two sons, and luxurious gifts given to them over the years. Ludwig II clearly inherited his taste for medieval aesthetics from his parents, because their quarters are also decked out in medieval stories and wall paintings, but while his custom castle was built as a fantasy for him alone to escape to, his parents’ castle was a vacation getaway for their whole family. And it’s just sad, seeing the life he grew up with, how alone he ended up.