A Bavarian fairytale: hiking, frosty peaks and an ivory castle

The tale of a starry-eyed monarch’s fantasy fortress provides the backdrop to a dazzling walking holiday in Germany’s far south

In a clearing at the foot of the Bavarian Alps, a stoat breaks cover. The little creature flows quickly across the grass, its eyes set ahead, the ice white of its fur broken only by the black tip of its tail. The dazzle of its winter coat provides zero camouflage on this cold, mid-January morning – all the snow is further up the slopes – but its button nose and exquisite colouring are a vision all the same, a cartoon come to life in Germany’s far south.

The stoat isn’t the only thing to have fallen from a Disney animation. Minutes away, set against a frost-dusted cragscape of dark peaks, a hilltop palace spears into the sky. It is spectacular and preposterous, an ivory fortress that seems to have been formed in a dream. Turrets zoom up towards the clouds, asymmetric balconies gaze out across the land, statues of knights stand on pinnacles. This is Neuschwanstein Castle – the most flamboyant of many such creations here in the hills – and the story behind it is every bit as bonkers as its design.