During our visit of Southern Germany or Bavaria, we had to see Herrenchiemsee. This is the castle that Mad King Ludwig II designed and built to be a replica of Versailles. It was built on Herreninsel in the middle of Chiemsee.
After visiting Versailles, we decided to compare palaces. King Ludwig is truly mad in his desire to imitate King Louis XIV, the Sun King. It is easy to see why he bankrupted Bavaria with all his building projects - Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, and Herrenchiemsee, which alone cost over 20 million Mark and was never completed.
The resemblance between Herrenchiemsee and Versailles was striking with the magnificent staterooms and the Hall of Mirrors. However, Mad Ludwig added his own embellishments, such as the palace entrances with multicolored specialized marble. He created a small swimming pool for his bathroom area, and he devised an innovative dumb waiter for the dining room. His dining room table stands on a large lift that can descend to the kitchen area where the table is set for the next course and then raised back up to the dining area. He wanted to avoid contact with his servants.
