One post is not enough to cover this eccentric yet beautiful villa in the Bavarian Alps. Seeing it was a highlight of my summer in Germany.

The palace is surrounded by formal gardens that are subdivided into five sections that are decorated with allegoric sculptures of the continents, the seasons and the elements:

The northern part is characterized by a cascade of thirty marble steps. The bottom end of the cascade is formed by the Neptune fountain and at the top there is a Music Pavilion.

The center of the western parterre is formed by basin with the gilt figure of Fame. In the west there is a pavilion with the bust of Louis XIV. In front of it you see a fountain with the gilt sculpture Amor with dolphins. The garden is decorated with four majolica vases.

The crowning of the eastern parterre is a wooden pavilion containing the bust of Louis XVI. Twenty-four steps below it there is a fountain basin with a gilt sculpture Amor shooting an arrow. A sculpture of Venus and Adonis is placed between the basin and the palace.

The water parterre in front of the palace is dominated by a large basin with the gilt fountain group Flora and putti. The fountain’s water jet itself is nearly 25 meters high.

The terrace gardens form the southern part of the park and correspond to the cascade in the north. On the landing of the first flight there is the Naiad fountain consisting of three basins and the sculptures of water nymphs. In the middle arch of the niche you see the bust of Marie Antoinette of France. These gardens are crowned by a round temple with a statue of Venus formed after a painting by Antoine Watteau (The Embarkation for Cythera).

The landscape garden covers an area of about 50 hectares (125 acres) and is perfectly integrated in the surrounding natural alpine landscape. There are several buildings of different appearance located in the park.

Venus Grotto
The building is hidden under an artificial hill with a rock entrance. It is wholly artificial and was built for the king as an illustration of the First Act of Wagner’s Tannhäuser. At the beginning of the first act, Tannhäuser is in the cave of Venusberg. In keeping with the theme, the painting by August von Heckel in the background of the main grotto depicts Tannhäuser with Frau Venus.

The grotto was built under the direction of the opera set designer August Dirigl between 1875 and 1877. It is an iron construction whose partition walls were covered with impregnated canvas, which in turn was sprayed with a cement mixture from which the artificially created stalactites are made. The grotto is divided into two side grottos and a main grotto.

Seven ovens were needed to heat all of the rooms. A waterfall and a shell-shaped barge were custom-made for use in the grotto. A rainbow projection device and a wave machine completed the illusion as the king was rowed around on the artificial lake while musicians played motifs from Tannhäuser.

At the same time Ludwig wanted his own blue grotto of Capri. Therefore, 24 dynamo generators powered by a steam engine, had been installed by Johann Sigmund Schuckert in 1878 and so already in the time of Ludwig II it was possible to illuminate the grotto in changing colours. This is said to have been the first Bavarian electricity plant as well as the first permanently installed power plant in the world.The king’s desire for a “bluer blu” spurred the then young paint industry and, four years after Ludwig’s death, the Baden Aniline and Soda Factory (BASF) received a patent from the Imperial Patent Office for the production of artificial indigo dye.