Swan Country
Schwangau means "Swan Country", and the presence of a sizeable colony of these aloof birds has cast a spell on rulers of the area down the centuries.
As the decoration of their fantasy castles testifies, the nineteenth-century Bavarian kings Maximilian II and his son Ludwig II were obsessed by the swan motif and the medieval Grail legends associated with it.
King Ludwig II recalled his line of descent and celebrated the arrival of the legendary knight on the shores of the Alpsee and united two figures into one: Driant, the Knight of the Swan, and Lohengrin, also a knight of the swan.


Neuschwanstein Castle
view of the castle from the bridge
Gorgeous castle pity about the scaffolding!
The castle