Schloss Herrenchiemsee, the Bavarian Versailles

King Ludwig II of Bavaria was a fervent follower of King Louis XIV. In his honor he built the Palace of Herrenchiemsee (New Palace) patterned from the Sun King’s Versailles. The king was later deposed and died without ever completing the construction of the palace.

Herrenchiemsee from the West. Image from Wikimedia Commons

A monastery once stood on the grounds of the Herrenchiemsee Castle—considered as the oldest in the whole Duchy of Bavaria—established between 620 and 629 by Saint Eustace of Luxeuil, a Burgundian missionary. In 1873, Ludwig II bought Herrenwörth, an island in Lake Chiemsee, to realize his dream of building his own version of Château de Versailles.

Construction began on May 21, 1878. Ludwig commissioned Georg Dollman to design the grand castle, and Dollman, Franz Von Seitz, and Christian Jank were the ones tasked to create Herrenchiemsee’s corps de logis or principal block.

King Ludwig II. Image from Wikimedia Commons

The “Bavarian Versailles” was built in the Neo Baroque style, and the interior stuns with its elaborately extravagant French Rococo design—wall and ceiling frescoes, stucco marble features, carved panels, and marquetry floors.

Schloss Herrenchiemsee is shaped liked a “W”, with its wings flanking each side of the central edifice. What has to be the most widely known part of Herrenchiemsee is the 98-meter-long Hall of Mirrors, which loosely resembles and is larger than the Galerie Des Glaces of Versailles. The luxurious structure is comprised of domed ceilings and wall mirrors and contains 17 arches, 33 pendant chandeliers and 44 freestanding lights, plus an array of fresco paintings and gilded stucco features.

Image from Florian Scheck via Wikimedia Commons

A colonnade frames both sides of the vestibule at the Herrenchiemsee palace. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Herrenchiemsee Hall of Mirrors. Image from Wikimedia Commons

The Herrenchiemsee dining room houses the biggest Meissen porcelain chandelier in the world. The dining room also has the infamous Tischlein-deck-dich or the magic table, which is connected to the kitchens below. This allowed Ludwig to eat all by himself, unbothered.

Ludwig never lived to see Herrenchiemsee completed, though was able to stay in the castle for a few days in September of 1885.

Construction costs in building Herchiemsee reached £154,000,000 or US$250,100,000, which is astoundingly higher than the combined costs of Linderhof and Neuschwanstein. Such amount almost drove royal finances to bankruptcy.