Ever wanted to follow in the footsteps of all the characters from your favourite fairy tales? We took our kids on a trip along Germany’s fairy tale route to see what magic we could find.
“Let Down Your Hair…”
Background
The Fairy Tale Route is a popular road-trip stretching for 600km through Germany, visiting locations made famous by the Brothers Grimm in their much loved collection of fairy tales. Have you ever wanted to visit Snow White’s cottage that she shared with the 7 Dwarfs, shout up to Rapunzel on the balcony of her tower, or be lured away by the Pied Piper with the rats of Hamelin?
The route is designed to run south to north, from Hanau, the birthplace of the brothers, in central Germany, to Bremen in the north of the country. As we were heading South from England, we visited the route in reverse, ducking in and out of sites of interest on our way down, while finding some unexpected treasures.
If you’re planning a road trip of your own through Germany, check out this useful complete Germany driving guide.
Also, if you like the sound of this sort of trip, take a look at some of these other hidden gems in Germany.
Hamelin: The Pied Piper
The traditional town of Hamelin made for an interesting stop. As well as being a charmingly preserved medieval town, as you can imagine, it is full of all things Pied Piper. From the gold embossed rats on the pavements, to the larger-than-life statue of the man himself, they have gone all out to promote their most famous fictional association. This reminded me of back in our home town of Nottingham, where tourists queue for their chance to be pictured with the statue of Robin Hood
Trendelburg: Rapunzel’s Tower
Best of all for us along the route was the Tower of Rapunzel (or rather the tower at the Burg Trendelburg Hotel as it really is). The hotel is beautifully located on top of a hill overlooking the town and river of Trendelburg, and is one of the best castle hotels in Germany. It would make a lovely setting for an event and I imagine they do a great trade in weddings.
They have also since added a door that provides access to the tower for great views from the top, as well as more surprisingly, access to just as many steps leading down underground to a spooky dungeon complete with ancient torture equipment (which proved a bit too much for the younger members of the party!).
TOP TIP: If visiting the tower, try to do so on a Sunday. On this day only, there is also an appearance by a real-life Rapunzel in her tower, with the chance for the crowd to all shout “let down your hair!”, in both German and English.
Rapunzel’ then comes down to the crowd below and sits and reads her story to the children as they gather around on cushions. Despite being read in German, our girls were completely mesmerised throughout.
Into the Woods…
All around Trendelburg, vast native Beech forests stretch for miles in all directions. A wander through these woods definitely evokes the spirit of many of the Grimm fairy tales, such as following in the footsteps of Hansel and Gretel to the imagined cottage of the infamous witch who tried to eat them. It’ll definitely leave you wanting to leave a trail of stones behind you!
The route is littered with other stops that relate to both the real life history of the Brothers themselves, as well as the tales that they created. Sometimes these lines between fact and fiction have blurred as the years have gone by.
Kassel and Bergpark Wilhelmshohe
The town of Kassel is home to a highly recommended museum, Grimmwelt, showcasing all things Brothers Grimm in an interactive visitor experience.
Away from the fairy tales, Kassel is home to the overbearing statue of Hercules that stares down over the city from the nearby Bergpark Wilhelmshohe.
Below the statue, there are a whole series of elaborate cascading water features running down the length of the hillside. These are only switched on every Wednesday, Sunday and public holiday, between 14:00 and 16:00 (which we stayed to witness). This makes for a curious spectacle where large crowds of people all scrum down the hill in procession, cheering on each new feature as the water reaches it and brings it to life. It was honestly like nothing we’d experienced before!
Don’t Miss…
Surrounding the Fairy Tale Route, there are plenty of other places worthy of a visit. A highlight for us was a visit to the Edersee, a huge reservoir with impressive dam structure, made famous by being one of the targets of a bouncing bomb in the infamous ‘Dambusters’ raid of WWII. We are familiar with this historical tale, living close to and, in John’s case, working at the Derwent Valley reservoirs back home where the raids were planned and practised for. To see the site of the receiving end of these raids from a reverse perspective was both an interesting and somewhat sobering experience.
Wurzburg
Another beautiful stop was the town of Wurzburg, home of what we dubbed ‘the best bridge in the World’. This is not because the bridge itself is of any great architectural significance, but because of the lovely views from it and its connection with the local wine culture of the region.
On both ends of the bridge are take-away wine bars providing tastings of wines from the local region (some of the dry, or ‘trocken’ Rieslings are really exceptional), as well as glasses to take away and drink on the bridge at your own leisure (with real glass for a deposit). The bridge is therefore full of people chatting away the early evening with glass in hand, making for a truly captivating setting.
Wurzburg also has some great restaurants for dining out. If you never thought much of German food, check out this interesting list of some of the best German foods, and see if I can get you to change your mind.
Our thoughts after making this road trip
From seemingly endless medieval towns and villages, to cooling clear lakes for swimming in on consistently warm and sunny days, the list goes on… One thing for sure, this central area of Germany remains very under-visited (particularly from a British perspective), so if you’re looking for a road trip that’s a bit different from the norm, this could be one for you.
Continuing this journey further south would also lead you onto the well travelled German Romantic Route, with a whole new selection of towns, sites and visitor attractions to be visited, culminating in the spectacular Neuschwanstein Castle (the real-life Disney princess castle). For us though, we were heading past Heidelberg and towards Switzerland instead, so all that would have to wait for another time…
For more inspiration for some of the best places to visit in Germany, check out this great round-up of The Most Idyllic Small Towns in Germany.
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Sounds like a great route to do with kids. I’d likely just do it for the sites rather than the fairytale connections. Germany is one of my favourite countries!
Thanks. Yes, we really like Germany as a country to visit. Good to escape the English crowds
I had no idea these towns existed much less knew that it spanned 600km throughout Germany! I was in Bremen nearly two years ago and I would’ve loved to have known about this! Definitely going to make this a trip when I have children! Looks like you had a great time!
Thanks. It’s a fun route for kids
I was scheduled to go to Germany this September but that trip has been placed on hold. Since there is more time to plan for a future trip, I would love to add this Fairy Tale road trip to see Rapunzel’s Tower and the other sites. The cascading stream from the building in Kassel looks fascinating. How many days did it take for your road trip?
It’s a fun trip. This bit that we did took us around 10 days, but I guess you could go either quicker or faster depending on how much you want to see. The route also extends further north right up to Bremen, but we’d just been there 2 years before, so we missed that bit out. Make sure you visit Trendelburg (Rapunzel’s) tower on a Sunday to see ‘Rapunzel’ herself – our girls loved it! (assuming they keep it the same after it re-opens). The cascading water at Kassel also only happens a couple of times a week.
What a trip! Kassel particularly looks like it’s straight out of a fairy tale – beautiful!
I used to live in Germany and I always enjoyed exploring around the country. So many fairytale towns. Your post brings me great memories. 🙂