Towering atop a rugged mountain peak, Neuschwanstein Castle's surreal appearance serves as a reminder of the dramatic life led by its creator – a fairytale castle for the fairytale king. Neuschwanstein is known all over the world as a symbol of idealised romantic architecture and for the tragic story of its owner. Due to its elevated setting high among the clouds, it was primarily used as a retreat offering awe-inspiring mountain vistas. Only two years after ascending the Bavarian throne in 1864, the young Ludwig II was forced to cede power to the Prussians, which left him with a hatred of the royal seat of Munich. To compensate, he devoted more and more of his time to the fine arts. After his sovereignty was taken away, he withdrew into his own world of myths, legend and fairytales. He had already felt the lure of the Middle Ages as a child growing up in medieval Hohenschwangau Castle and was equally enraptured by a set of ruins in the nearby Pöllat gorge, which he considered the perfect place to turn his dream into reality. A castle in the “authentic style of the old German knights”, he wrote to Richard Wagner. Ludwig had only recently seen the composer's opera “Tannhäuser”, which tells the story of a singers' contest at Wartburg Castle. He was enthralled by this operatic drama that combined a powerful musical score with medieval legend. Wagner exerted a powerful influence on the Bavarian king's behaviour, his way of thinking and consequently his building projects, of which Neuschwanstein was just one. The pair got to know each other in 1861 and over the years developed an almost spiritual bond in a most unusual friendship. Ludwig was enraptured by Wagner's operas and their colourful worlds. The composer on the other hand, who pioneered the concept of operas as all-encompassing works of art, needed his patron's money for the opera house he planned to build in Bayreuth. Neuschwanstein Castle, which was only given this name after Ludwig II's death, unashamedly harks back to the German Romanesque of the 13th century. But it is less a mock medieval castle, and more a unique achievement of historicism, which at that time stood for the perfection of styles popular in earlier times. What better man to accomplish this than the idealistic young king who lived in a world of his own? His world-famous castle is an unmistakable monument to Richard Wagner, the composer he admired so much. In the king's own words it was “a worthy temple for my divine friend”. Ludwig seldom took up residence in his fairytale castle, and he never saw it without scaffolding. Indeed the southern wing was only completed in 1891, five years after the king's mysterious death at Lake Starnberg.