The German castle which inspired that of Walt Disney classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site

The spectacular German castle Neuschwanstein, straight out of a tale, and three other residences of the whimsical king Louis II of Bavaria, were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage, the UN organization announced on Saturday.

Known for having served as a model at Walt Disney, Neuschwanstein, erected in the second half of the 19th century on a rocky spur 200 meters high in the Bavarian Alps (south of Germany) combines a medieval appearance with ultra -modern techniques for the time.

Welcoming nearly 1.5 million tourists each year, it is the most visited castle in Germany. Its main pieces are largely decorated with scenic murals representing Germanic and Nordic legends, sources of inspiration from the composer Richard Wagner to whom Louis II of Bavaria devoted without limit and for whom he spent without counting.

Located in the same region, the royal buildings of Herrenchiemsee, Linderhof and Schachen, also come in World Heritage.

“For our fairy tale castles, the tale becomes reality: we are in the UNESCO World Heritage Site,” reacted on X the head of the regional government of Bavaria, Markus Söder, promising to “preserve this cultural heritage and to transmit it to future generations”.

“This is a great responsibility,” said Peter Seibert, one of the leaders of the Bavarian castles administration, stressing that these royal residences “have become an image of Bavaria and Germany abroad”.

A sort of unfinished small Versailles, Herrenchiemsee was built on an island in Lake Chiem, between Munich and Salzburg.

Louis II of Bavaria had nicknamed him “Meicost-ettal”, anagram of the famous formula “the State is me” attributed to Louis XIV, an absolute monarch he admired. It is also because of this admiration that the Bavarian sovereign did not go to the proclamation of the German Empire for the benefit of Prussia on January 18, 1871 in the Galerie des Glaces in Versailles, being represented by his brother Othon.

The castle of Linderhof is the only building commanded by Louis II of Bavaria completed during his lifetime, in 1878. Very close to Neuschwanstein, it borrowed elements of French Baroque architecture under Louis XV while mixing Rococo style born in the south of Germany.

In the park, the Venus cave, fully artificial and designed as a personal retirement for the king, is inspired by the Wagner Opera “Tannhäuser”. It has a single lighting system which originally used dynamo machines that can simulate different hours of the day and weather conditions.

The last of the four on the UNESCO list, the Royal House of Schachen, is a kind of very large Swiss chalet, where Louis II of Bavaria loved to celebrate his birthday and his patron saint on August 25. It is located at 1,800 meters above sea level, in a grand site not far from Neuschwanstein.

Ironically, these four residences which are today the pride of Bavaria have caused the loss of their sponsor: the exorbitant construction costs led the Bavarian government to oust the sovereign mounted on the throne at 18, riddled with debts.

Declared mad, he was arrested in Neuschwanstein and interned at the Château de Berg where he mysteriously died a few days later at the age of 40, in 1886.