The modern country of Germany only became a single state in relatively recent times! This castle was built by King Ludwig II in the late 1800's, during a time when the kings of Bavaria lost substantial power to the Prussians as Germany was being consolidated! It's hard to believe, but Germany was a number of different independent states for the first 100 years that the United States was a country!
When King Ludwig II built this castle, it upset many of the people in his government because it was one of many, many castles that he decided to build, and he was not very good with managing the state's finances. He was removed from power before the castle was finished, and unfortunately, the castle was never actually completed. So what we see today is just a half-finished castle.
I also learned about Prinzessin Therese von Bayern, who grew up after Ludwig II was deposed and was actually a scientist! She dedicated her life to ethnography (studying people), zoology (studying animals), and botany (studying plants), and she made many research trips around Europe, northern Africa and South America. Her research made her one of the few women ever nominated into the Bavarian Academy of Sciences!
We also saw some interesting architecture with some building's roofs covered with rocks! I was curious about this and fortunately a person that lived locally was able to explain that due to the strong winds, it is common to put rocks on roofs to keep the roof tiles from flying off!
Once we got back to München, I had a few hours of down time to read a paper on ocean circulation in a local library. Then, after what had been only a whirlwind 24 hour trip in the south, I finally got back on the train home to Kiel!
