Castles of Dreams

 

Geoff writes: 

When young Prince Ludwig of Bavaria looked out from his bedroom window in his father’s ‘country’ palace on the edge of the Alps, he saw the ruins of an ancient castle on a steep pinnacle of rock. And he dreamed………

 

The castle he built at Neuschwanstein has probably graced the front page of more tourist brochures than any other.  Few realise that it was built in the 1870s.

 

Irrational, fantastic, but a stunning testament to romantic ideals of beauty and chivalry, it was a cry of protest against the industrialised Realpolitik of Kaiser Wilhelm’s new Germany.

 

Of course, it helps if you’re a Prince or a King.  Ludwig was wise enough to know that the realities of life in the middle ages were very different from the ideals, but he followed his dream.

 

Despite his popularity among ordinary Bavarians, his extravagance and eccentricity were too much for the Establishment. He was deposed in a family coup d’etat and died in mysterious circumstances. But his memory is revered in modern Bavaria – if only as the unintentional founding father of Bavaria’s flourishing tourist industry.

 

God has a soft spot for dreamers, even if their dreams appear controversial or divisive at first. Remember Joseph, whose bizarre dreams also drove his brothers to the brink of fratricide. He didn’t have the wealth of a prince, but with the guidance and protection of God he delivered his dream and saved his family, and the whole of Egypt, from starvation.