Herrenchiemsee Palace

Lake Chiemsee is the largest lake in Bavaria and is home to another one of King Ludwig II extravaganzas – Herrenchiemsee Palace. 

Not content with Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig set about building himself a palace.  True to form, the palace was to be grand and opulent.  It suffered, however, a similar fate to Neuschwanstein and despite the grand intentions neither the palace nor the interior rooms were completed. 

Only 20 of the 70 palace rooms have been decorated and our tour today showed the stark contrast between the bare-bricked unfinished rooms and the extravagant and elaborate detail of the completed ones.  There was so much opulence that it was hard to take it all in.  In one room, the King’s writing desk was made of 16 different types of inlaid wood, in another an unfinished cabinet that several carpenter’s had worked on for 4 years was made from turtle shell inlaid with wooden motifs.  

There were over 50 massive crystal chandeliers, the largest weighing half a tonne.  The dining table sat on an elevator that could be lowered to the floor below where it was laden with food and crockery before being raised again.  The King’s bath, more like a pool, held 60,000 litres of water and took over 8 hours to fill! 

Herrenchiemsee gardens

King Ludwig II was an ardent admirer of French King Louis XIV and Herrenchiemsee was to have been an equivalent to the Palace of Versailles.  It too has a stunning hall of mirrors and huge mirrors, often facing each other to create infinite reflections, feature throughout the completed room.

You're not allowed to photograph inside the palace, so nabbed this from the net.

Our tour guide was brilliant, animated and fun and she made a special effort to include the kids.  For a stopping point designed to break up our Munich – Mondsee journey Herrenchiemsee Palace was a treat.

Scenery en route