Décor – Lever

In the lake of Chiemsee, in the Bavarian Alps, there is an island, and on that island there is a palace and at the dead centre of that palace is a bed - room. The walls are lined with scarlet damask, embroidered with twisted columns interlaced with vines, and the room is divided by a gilded balustrade. Visitors stand on one side of the balustrade, while on the other, little folding stools line the walls. Directly beneath the dome stands the red velvet cube of a bed.

No-one has ever slept in this bed. And no-one has lived in the palace either. It was built by mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria in the 1870s; but it was never finished. He only spent one night in the place – alone apparently. He had the candles lit in his ersatz Galerie des Glaces, and wandered from salon to glittering salon, retiring only as the sun rose to another chamber, which he had had made in the form of a cabinet of Psyche.

By Ed Hollis

Extract from Ed Hollis’ new book The Memory Palace: A Book of Lost Interiors (2013).