When I was a child I used to dream of all the Disney fairytales and those wonderful castles in Sleeping Beauty. What I didn't know is that there is a real castle which was the inspiration for the film, until I went to Germany.

In the middle of the Alps very close to the Austrian border is Neuschwanstein Castle, and here starts the tale. Once upon a time there was a German king who wanted to live in a fairytale world. When the government realised he was ruining the country with his ambitious projects, and they interned him in a palace due to his insanity. The next day he appeared drowned in a lake in mysterious circumstances, before he had been able to build what would have been the most beautiful castle in the world. Fortunately for the Germans, King Ludwig II was able to build another castle in 1875 before his tragic end, which today is one of the most popular tourist attractions of the country.

Crowded everyday, getting into Neuschwanstein castle is almost ‘mission impossible', not only getting through the hundreds of cars queuing, but also arriving at the top of the hill where the castle is. That is why in the way up to the castle there are many small stands selling traditional Bavarian food, such as weisswurst (white sausage) and Bretzle, as well as souvenir shops selling mini castles, pictures of the castle everywhere and even more pictures of Ludwig II, who seems to have won back all of the popularity he had lost when he was alive. There is nothing better than merchandising! Unfortunately my boyfriend and I weren't very smart and, after spending almost everything on the tickets, we had to go up the hill smelling the nice food and watching the other tourists eating. The smartest were a big family of Italians who had taken an entire picnic with them.

Finally after 45 minutes climbing, there it was - the fairy tale castle which had looked quite small from far away but now was impressive. As I don't speak German and my boyfriend doesn't speak Spanish, we decided to take the tour in a language we both understood - English. But the tourist guide had a very strong German accent and after a while I started to feel bored from not understanding anything. It was a relief to hear other British tourists complaining about the same problem, so then I didn't feel alone anymore.

What was clear among everything that the guide said is that the King Ludwig II didn't live in the real world. He was too much of a dreamer, so much so that he paid for it with his life. Everything that Ludwig loved appeared everywhere in the castle. As his passion was swans, he made sure that they were all around painted on the walls, as sculptures, shaping the furniture and even as door handles. That is why the castle is called Neuschwanstein, schwan meaning ‘swan'. He also had a very close friendship with the famous German composer Richard Wagner and was an admirer of his music. So he dedicated one entire room just to one of the Wagner's composition, a kind of recreational room to enjoy Wagner's music, where both would spend their time with other guests.

But it was between Ludwig's room full of swans and Wagner's room that we were astonished, because here the king's imagination had no limits and he had built the an imitation cave to connect the two rooms. It was as if we were suddenly in the story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves. If this was not enough, going downstairs we saw a huge kitchen also with funny shapes, I had never seen something like that in my life, everywhere you looked, from the rooms to the corridors and the kitchen, was full of imagination, like in fairytales.

Less the stuff of fairytales was the souvenir shop, which you have no choice but to go through in order to finish the tour. These Germans are very cunning, thanks to Ludwig II they have found the goose that lays the golden eggs. In the shop, we could see drawings of how the new castle he was planning to build would have looked. It would have been placed in an even higher point in the mountains, and it seemed a pity not being able to see such a breathtaking picture in reality. I'm pretty sure that although Ludwig would have ruined Germany by that time with the castle, today it would have been a real goldmine.

Ludmila thanks Karsten Schumacher for the photographs.