Painting in Neuschwanstein Castle

Description

The Bavarian portal was originally deep in the woods between twin trees that grew between twin medieval castles. When Mother Goose sends the Grande Armée through, she asks King Ludwig II to build a castle over that exact spot, so the soldiers would be tricked into thinking they were in the fairy-tale world if they ever emerged in the Otherworld again.

Conner, Bree and Emmerich go into the castle to find the entry to the portal, which turns out to be a painting of a magical garden: "a majestic forest with trees, flowers, squirrels, deer, and boulders."

The portal within the painting can only be activated by a person of magical blood playing 8 notes on a magic panpipe. Mother Goose gives Wilhelm Grimm a few drops of her blood so he can open the portal for the French soldiers. Conner is the one who opens the portal in A Grimm Warning, for he is part-fairy. They only wanted to test if the portal works, but got sucked into it by force. It was a rough ride; they felt very discombobulated when they arrived at their destination.

The portal will take 200 years to travel through for persons of non-magical blood, like the French soldiers. Conner, Bree, and Emmerich took only a few weeks, implying that they all have magic in their blood (not just Conner).

In Beyond the Kingdoms, Morina tells the other witches how she managed to use the portal to go to the Otherworld to kidnap Emmerich, but adds that the white magic the late Fairy Godmother used to create it weakened and exhausted her, and claims the other witches wouldn't have the strength to use it.

Destinations

The Otherworld-side of the portal is inside Neuschwanstein castle in Bavaria, Germany, in a room called the Singer's Hall. On the Land of Stories side, the portal leads to a site near Pinocchio Prison in the Eastern Kingdom.