Linderhof Palace Tickets, Grotto and Park
Eleven euro at the gate and 25 minutes inside, with groups leaving every five to ten minutes. Seventeen listings here at a median of 540.55 EUR, and 12,373 reviews at 4.773, the best score in Bavaria.
Linderhof is the cheapest door in Bavaria's royal circuit and the shortest visit on it. 11.00 EUR for an adult, 10.00 reduced, free under 18, and about twenty-five minutes inside with a guide, because the palace cannot be walked alone. Groups leave every five to ten minutes, so the next tour is rarely far off. The thing worth knowing before choosing a date is that the ticket buys different amounts of Linderhof depending on the month: from 16 October the Venus Grotto and the park pavilions close, and what is left is the palace alone.
That gap between the gate and the catalogue is the widest in this cluster, and it is worth putting numbers on rather than apologising for. The seventeen listings tracked here run from 72.00 to 1,199.00 EUR. The lower quartile is 410.00, the upper is 647.50, and thirteen of the seventeen cost more than 250 EUR. Fifteen of them run eight hours or more. Nobody is selling an 11.00 EUR palace ticket with a mark-up; they are selling a day with a car in it, and Linderhof is one of the two stops. The shortest of the seventeen runs six hours and the median runs nine and a half. There is no version of Linderhof on this site that is only the palace, because there is no way to turn an 11.00 EUR ticket into a product.
The other number worth pausing on is the rating. These seventeen listings carry 12,373 reviews at a weighted 4.773, which is the highest score in the German tree and well above the 4.653 this site averages across all 63 categories. One plausible reading is that nobody arrives at Linderhof by accident. It is not on a postcard, it takes a deliberate detour, and the people who make that detour tend to be the people who wanted to be there. The highest rated German listing anywhere on this site, a 5.0 from 179 reviews, is one of these Linderhof days.
What follows is the ticket menu, including the two things in the park that are free and the one that costs 2.00 EUR and cannot be bought online, the timetable inside, the two current conditions that photographs will not warn anyone about, and the one mistake worth correcting outright, which is about which building in this park is behind scaffolding.
A Driver Rather Than a Guide, and the Pickup Can Be the Airport
Private transport with free time at both castles rather than a guided tour: hotel, address or airport pickup, luggage help, and a driver who waits for you.
A Main Course and a Drink Are in the Price, and Pickup Can Be Füssen
Lunch at a historic Bavarian restaurant is part of the day, main course and a drink, and the pickup can be Munich, Garmisch-Partenkirchen or Füssen. Sales final.
A Neo-Romanesque Face on a High-Tech Castle, and the Floor He Never Finished
Three castles in a day with skip-the-line entry booked even at short notice, and a route out of Neuschwanstein through the unfinished floor and the kitchen.
Book the Castle Tickets Yourself; the Courtyards Cost Nothing
Door-to-door in a premium car with an English-speaking driver. Entry tickets are not included and must be booked online; the courtyards cost nothing.
Fourteen Rooms, 200 Metres Above the Gorge, and a Hall of Mirrors
A private day with skip-the-line entry at both castles: the fourteen decorated rooms at Neuschwanstein, and the Hall of Mirrors at the one Ludwig completed.
In Snow There Is No Shuttle and No Bridge, and the Carriage Takes You Down
A private day that says plainly what winter costs: no shuttle bus and no Mary's Bridge when there is snow. A horse-drawn carriage brings you back down.
Linderhof Alone, Three Hours in the Grounds, and One Add-On to Choose
The one day out of Munich that skips Neuschwanstein entirely: entry included, a 30-minute guided interior, and up to three hours in the park afterwards.
Ruling Bavaria from the Graswang Valley, and the Tour of the Exterior
A timed entry that is guaranteed, a guided walk of the outside of Neuschwanstein, and Linderhof in the valley where Ludwig II actually governed from.
Tickets to Both Included, and a Day Sold as a Budget of Minutes
Skip-the-line tickets to both castles are in the price, and the day is sold as 9.5 or 11 hours of time credit that each optional stop spends down.
You Set the Time and the Address, and the Way Back Isn't the Way Out
A private van collects you wherever and whenever you say, castle tickets already bought, and the return runs a different road past the Plansee or Oberammergau.
Every Admission Included, the Carriage Too, and 1 Hour 45 to Get There
All the admissions are prepaid and a horse-drawn carriage ride comes with them. Inside, both castles run entry as group tours, as their own rules require.
Lunch Over the Austrian Border at Reutte, and a Route That Changes as You Go
A private day with a native English-speaking guide, hotel pickup at eight, and lunch across the border at Reutte. Castle tickets are arranged but not included.
The Venus Grotto, Reopened in 2025 After Ten Years of Restoration
The grotto with its artificial lake is back after a decade of restoration, and only from 1 May to 15 October. Entry fees to both castles are in the price.
Both Entry Fees Included, 28 Seats, and Oberammergau Actually Stops
Neuschwanstein first thing at ten, a half hour on foot in Oberammergau, Linderhof at 3:45, back by seven. Both castle entries are in the price. 28 seats.
Pay the Guide in Cash, Choose One Castle or Both, and See Oberammergau from the Coach
Entry is not prepaid: choose one castle or both and pay the guide in cash. Linderhof at eleven, Neuschwanstein just after four, back after a two-hour drive.
Ten and a Half Hours, Linderhof First, and the Ticket Bought on the Day
A long day from Sonnenstraße: Linderhof in the morning with a tour, the gardens or a coffee, then Neuschwanstein without the queue but without the ticket.
Three Castles in a Day, a Driver and a Guide, and the Plansee on the Way
Neuschwanstein, Hohenschwangau and Linderhof in one private day, with a driver and a guide, a lunch stop between the first two and a coffee at the last.
Ratings collected by Viator, Tripadvisor and Civitatis
Four tickets and a free park
The ticket structure here is unusually honest and unusually easy to get wrong. The palace and the Venus Grotto are separate visits with separate prices, 11.00 and 9.00 EUR, and the combined Gesamtkarte at 18.00 EUR saves 2.00 EUR on the pair. Reduced rates are 10.00, 8.00 and 16.00. The grotto and the combined ticket only exist in the summer season, so a January visitor has one option and it costs 11.00 EUR. The free list runs a little further than usual: under-18s pay nothing, and neither do adult students carrying a school identity card, which is worth checking before buying four full tickets for a family.
Two more things live in the park and behave differently from everything else. The Königshäuschen, the king's small house, has its own 2.00 EUR ticket, 1.00 reduced, and it is sold on site only, which means an online basket cannot contain it. The other park buildings, the Moroccan House, Hunding's Hut and the Hermitage, need no ticket and no guide at all when they are open: they run 11:00 to 18:00 in season and shut for the winter. A visitor who wants a long afternoon here is buying one ticket and walking the rest.
| Ticket | What it opens | Adult price | Time inside | Season |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palace | The palace, guided only | 11.00 EUR | About 25 minutes | All year |
| Venus Grotto | The grotto, guided only | 9.00 EUR | About 15 minutes | Summer season only |
| Gesamtkarte | Palace and grotto together | 18.00 EUR | About 40 minutes guided | Summer season only |
| Königshäuschen | The king's cottage in the park | 2.00 EUR | Not published | Sold on site only, winter Sundays and holidays 12:00 to 16:30 |
| Park pavilions | Moroccan House, Hunding's Hut, Hermitage | Nothing | Self-guided, no group | 11:00 to 18:00 in season, closed in winter |
The timetable inside, and the ticket that never bends
Both indoor visits are guided and neither can be done alone. Palace groups leave every five to ten minutes and the grotto every twenty, which is a far denser rhythm than the fixed hourly slots people arrive expecting, and it is the reason a missed connection here is usually survivable. Live guides work in German and English.
The ticket itself does not bend at all. It is issued for a time, and the palace shop states that it is neither exchangeable, changeable nor refundable, with no exception published for anyone who arrives late. Against that, the booking side is friendlier than at any other Bavarian royal site: an individual pays no booking fee, and a sold-out website here does not mean a sold-out palace. Groups of fifteen or more are the exception, paying 1.50 EUR a head and booking at least fourteen days ahead, with an invoice before the reservation is confirmed.
The desk opens at 8:30 and closes at 17:30 in summer, 9:30 to 16:00 in winter. The administration publishes the length of each tour and no recommended total for the site, so the arithmetic is yours to do: twenty-five minutes, plus fifteen for the grotto, plus however long the park takes on foot, and the park is bigger and steeper than the photographs suggest.
The water parterre, running at reduced pressure
The front of the palace faces a round basin with a gilded group in the middle of it, clipped hedges and urns down each side. It is the picture that sells Linderhof, and at the time of this check it is not quite what is running. The park fountains are working at reduced flow after the summer drought, which the administration says in a notice on its own home page rather than on any ticket page.
That is not a reason to change a date, and it is a reason to lower expectations set by a photograph. The jets in promotional images are the full programme. What a visitor sees this season may be a shorter version of it, and no reseller anywhere is going to mention that on a product page.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
The reason those bands matter is the size of what disappears. In summer an 18.00 EUR combined ticket buys two guided visits, three park buildings that cost nothing and a long walk between them. In winter 11.00 EUR buys twenty-five minutes and a closed park, with the Königshäuschen opening only on Sundays and public holidays and during Bavarian school holidays, 12:00 to 16:30. The palace is the same palace in February. The day is not the same day.
One winter date is easy to miss. Linderhof closes on Shrove Tuesday, along with 1 January and 24, 25 and 31 December. Shrove Tuesday is not on the published closure list of either castle above Füssen, so a February itinerary built around them can walk into a locked gate here on a day when everything else in the region is open.
What the 11 EUR does not cover
It does not cover the grotto, which is a separate 9.00 EUR or the 18.00 EUR combined ticket, and which does not exist as a product between 16 October and 14 April. It does not cover the Königshäuschen, sold on site for 2.00 EUR. It does not cover a change of mind: the timed ticket is not exchangeable and not refundable, in the shop's own words, for any reason.
And it does not cover a single photograph indoors. Photography and filming are not permitted in the palace, in the Venus Grotto or in the Königshäuschen, and the same rule follows the Wittelsbach estate up the mountain to the Königshaus am Schachen, which can only be reached on foot or on horseback. Outside is free for private use, and professional or commercial work needs a written permit that is charged for.
One last thing it does not cover, because it is not open to anybody: the Moorish Kiosk is under scaffolding for roof and facade work, and the administration expects it back at the start of the 2028 season. It is a park pavilion and it is not the grotto, which runs normally in season. The two get confused constantly, including by pages selling tickets.
What this catalogue sells for an 11 EUR palace
Seventeen listings, sixteen of them from Viator and one from Civitatis, and the shape of them is unlike anything else in this catalogue. Eleven are private tours. Thirteen cost more than 250 EUR. Fifteen run eight hours or more, with a median duration of 570 minutes, and the cheapest of the seventeen is 72.00 EUR against a top price of 1,199.00.
The two ends of that range behave very differently. The most reviewed product is a shared day trip at 76.00 EUR carrying 5,308 reviews at 4.7, which is the entry point most people actually buy. Above it sits a dense band of private cars between 410.00 and 647.50 EUR, the two quartiles, several of them rated 5.0 on samples of fifteen to two hundred reviews. A 5.0 from fifteen reviews and a 4.7 from five thousand are not the same claim, and a page that prints both without saying so is being unhelpful on purpose.
One operational detail is worth more here than the ratings. Only one of the seventeen confirms instantly, and fifteen allow free cancellation. A booking that takes a day or two to confirm is a smaller risk here than it would be at Neuschwanstein, where the same delay can mean the day is gone.
Linderhof questions with a number in the answer
How long do I need at Linderhof?
The guided parts are twenty-five minutes in the palace and fifteen in the grotto. The administration publishes those two figures and no recommended total for the visit, which leaves the park to estimate: the pavilions are spread across rising ground and the walking between them is the part that stretches an afternoon.
Do I have to book in advance?
Less than anywhere else in Bavaria's royal circuit. Individuals pay no booking fee, and the palace ticket shop says that when the online allocation is empty there are usually still tickets at the castle counter. Groups of fifteen or more are different: 1.50 EUR a head, at least fourteen days ahead, confirmed only after the invoice is paid.
What is closed in winter?
The Venus Grotto and all the park pavilions, from 16 October to 14 April. The palace stays open on shorter hours, 10:00 to 16:30. The Königshäuschen opens only on Sundays and public holidays and during Bavarian school holidays, 12:00 to 16:30. A winter ticket is 11.00 EUR and about twenty-five minutes.
Is the Venus Grotto the part that is under restoration?
No, and this is the most repeated mistake about Linderhof. The grotto runs normally in season. The building under scaffolding is the Moorish Kiosk, a separate park pavilion, closed for roof and facade work with a reopening expected at the start of the 2028 season.
Can I take photographs inside?
No. Photography and filming are not allowed in the palace, the grotto or the Königshäuschen, and the ban extends to the Königshaus am Schachen up in the mountains. Outdoors is unrestricted for private use, which is where the water parterre and the terraces are anyway.
Why do listings here start at 72 EUR when the palace costs 11?
Because none of the seventeen is a palace ticket. Eleven are private tours, thirteen cost more than 250 EUR, and fifteen run eight hours or more, all of them built around a car or a coach from Munich. The most reviewed of them is a 76.00 EUR shared day trip with 5,308 reviews at 4.7, and the median across all seventeen is 540.55 EUR.
Is Linderhof open on Shrove Tuesday?
No, and it is the only one of these palaces that closes that day. Its other closures are 1 January and 24, 25 and 31 December. Shrove Tuesday is not on the published closure list of either castle above Füssen, so a February plan can lose this stop and keep the rest.
Data verified on. Prices, tour lengths, season dates and restrictions from schlosslinderhof.de, its ticket shop and schloesser.bayern.de. Catalogue figures from the 17 listings tracked here.