Linderhof

Linderhof is the smallest and most homey of Ludwig II’s palaces. Be sure to buy an English guidebook at the entrance, as there aren’t always enough English-speaking guests to warrant a guided tour in English. A ten-minute stroll through parklike grounds brings you to the squat, little palace with its fountains and Italian-style gardens. The guided tour leads you from one outrageous room to another, including the decadent state room, and the dining room where Ludwig ate solitary meals at a table which was lowered, like a dumb waiter, below the floor so that meals were served without Ludwig being disturbed by servants. Walk up the hill to the *Venus Grotto. Ludwig commissioned the building of this cavernous grotto hung with stalactites and festooned with garlands where a conch-shell boat floats in the middle of an illuminated lake and the jeweled Lorelei cliff glitters with crystals. A short distance farther along the woodland path you come to the Moorish Kiosk where Ludwig dressed up as a Turkish sultan and smoked his hookah surrounded by young boys dressed up as palace eunuchs. Small wonder that the Bavarian government questioned his sanity! (Allow for a wait in summer, 9 am–5:30 pm, April to September; 10 am–4 pm, October to March.)