The castle he barely got to live in

This one's a proper fairytale, and like most fairytales it has a sad bit in the middle.

Ludwig II built Neuschwanstein exactly the way he wanted it: turrets, a Byzantine throne room, a bedroom carved with scenes from Tristan and Isolde, the works. It was never meant to defend anything, just to look extraordinary, which it still does.

Here's the part that gets me though. He only slept there 172 nights. In 1886 he was declared unfit to rule, and days later he was found dead in Lake Starnberg, and nobody has ever fully agreed on what happened. The castle was still unfinished. The throne room still has no throne in it.

I painted this one in watercolour and ink, all those turrets stacked up against the Alps behind them. There's a poster and a postcard, with a letter home if you'd like one, because this is a story that deserves more than a caption.

Shop the poster here: Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria · Travel Poster