Hohenschwangau Castle

Hohenschwangau Castle or Schloss Hohenschwangau (lit: Upper Swan County Palace) is a 19th-century palace in southern Germany. It was the childhood residence of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and was built by his father, King Maximilian II of Bavaria. It is located in the German village of Hohenschwangau near the town of Füssen, part of the county of Ostallgäu in southwestern Bavaria, Germany, very close to the border with Austria.

The fortress Schwangau, which was first mentioned in historical records dating from the 12th Century, stood high up on a rock on the site of the present 19th-century Neuschwanstein castle. The knights, later counts of Schwangau, were ministerialis of the Welfs. Hiltbolt von Schwangau (1195–1254) was a minnesinger. Margareta von Schwangau was the wife of minnesinger Oswald von Wolkenstein.

The present day Hohenschwangau ("Upper Schwangau") castle was first mentioned in 1397, though under the name of Schwanstein. Only in the 19th century the names of the two castles have switched. It was built on a hill above lake Alpsee, below the older fortress. Between 1440 and 1521 the Lords had to sell their fief with Imperial immediacy to the Wittelsbach dukes of Bavaria, but continued to occupy the castle as Burgraves. In 1521 they became owners again but had to sell their land in 1535. The purchaser, Johann Paumgartner, a wealthy Augsburg merchant, had the lower castle reconstructed by Italian architect Lucio di Spazzi who already worked on the Hofburg, Innsbruck. He kept the exterior walls and the towers but rebuilt the inner parts until 1547, on a floor plan that still today exists. The older Schwangau fortress however continued to fall into ruins. Paumgartner, after having been elevated to the rank of baron, died in 1549 and his sons sold their new castle to Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria.

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