July 14- Fairy Tale Road

European windows took some experimentation to figure out, but we think we’ve finally got them. In many windows, the handle needs to point straight down, in the “6 o’clock” position to be closed. If you turn it 90 degrees (to 3 or 9 o’clock, depending on which way the window opens), the window will swing open like a door. However, if you close the window, turn the handle back to 6:00 and then to 12:00, the window pops off of its top hinge and leans into the room, creating a gap at the top of the window. This way, the widow can be left open a bit to allow cool air in. Since air conditioning is rare, even in expensive hotel rooms (like last night’s) the windows are often left propped open from the top. This mechanism is used on many sized windows, from the usual size all the way up to patio doors.

There is really no reason why you still couldn’t have screens in the windows like these, but none of them do. That means that certain things do get in. There seemed to be many mosquitoes in our hotel room in Garda, Italy, for example, and the three girls especially seemed to be attracting bites. This morning was more interesting though. Both the window and the skylight were open because it was quite humid last night. Scott awoke with a start and a shout when he felt something flapping at his toes. A small grey and brown bird had found its way into the room, but was now having problems finding its way out. Luckily, we had already mastered the ways of the window, and it was easy to open the window wide again like a door so he could find his way out.

Today’s tour was a trip up the Fairy Tale Road. A while ago, towns in Southern Germany joined together to market themselves as the “Romantic Road” and were apparently quite successful at attracting tourists. The Fairy Tale Road is a similar marketing device for towns in Northern Germany. Many of the towns have ties to the Brothers Grimm and the origins of their stories. Some towns have a more obvious link to the stories than others, and for some, they’re making a bit of a stretch in order to be included. Julie and Scott kept calling it the Fairy Tale Trail, just because of the rhyme and rhythm of the name, but we could tell by the way that Anna talked about it that she expected a trail we would walk on through a woods. We’ve tried to change to calling it the Fairy Tale Road because of that.

Our first stop was the town of Lohr am Main, which is not officially on the Fairy Tale Road at all. There’s no telling what the politics were that kept it from being included, but it’s got one of the better claims to Fairy Tale history. It claims to be the hometown of Snow White. We got the scoop at the visitor’s center, but it was in German. Using our translator and previous knowledge gained from the Internet, we can piece together parts of the story. Once upon a time (in 1729, to be precise), a girl by the name of Maria Sophia Margaretha Christina von Erthal lived in the castle at Lohr and had a step mother that she did not along with. A route that she took to escape from her can allegedly be followed through the nearby countryside. The local glassmaking industry is famous for its mirrors, many of which are on display in the museum (which we didn’t see), and these may have been the inspiration for the magic mirror. Nearby miners are said to have given her assistance, and these men may have become the seven dwarfs as the story was retold. The town is pretty, but there’s nothing to see or photograph that is associated with Snow White. We were hoping for a commemorative plaque or sign, but the lady in the visitor’s center said there wasn’t any.

The trip to Lohr took us quite a ways to the east of the start of the road, so we had to swing back to near where we started. We made it to Hanau, the first official stop, when it was close to lunch time. This town is the birthplace of the Brothers Grimm. We followed signs to parking and to the Rathaus (town hall). It is a big, pretty, brick building with a statue of the two brothers in front of it in a big square. We ate lunch at a McDonald’s, in view of the statue, took our chance for the photo-op with Jacob and Wilhelm, and continued on.

Our next stop was also the second stop on the official trail- the town of Steinau an der Strasse. This town is the one where the Grimm family moved and the brothers spent a large part of their life. The businesses in town seem to be mostly closed on Tuesdays, but we found the Brüder Grimm Haus museum, in the house where they lived and it was open. It’s a small museum, and there is no English translation for the German exhibits, but even so, it was an interesting stop. Part of the museum is currently an exhibit of modern cartoons that make jokes about the Grimm stories. Again, it was all in German, but we could make out the point of many of the cartoons using the pictures and what vocabulary we knew, and laughed at many of them. Part of the house is set up as a kitchen from the time when the Grimm family would have been there. There are many examples of first editions of the Grimm fairy tales and examples of art that has illustrated various editions of the books. The art continued all the way up to Shrek, but conspicuously contained no Disney versions. Perhaps the most interesting person in the exhibits was neither Jacob nor Wilhelm Grimm, but a third brother- Ludwig Emil Grimm. He was an artist, and many of his pictures are on exhibit there, including portraits of the family. Anastasia discovered a reproduction of a machine that he made. It had a long roll of paper that he had illustrated with the scenes from a story. If you turned a crank, the paper would advance and you’d get to see the next part of the story, like a comic strip on a roll. Unfortunately, again, we could only admire the art because we could not read the German script.

Before leaving the museum, we bought an English version of some of the more popular Grimm Fairy Tales, so that we could read them in the car. Emma loved looking at the pictures as we drove. Before we left Stainau, We stopped at a bakery that was one of the few stores open in town, and Julie finally got her Black Forest cherry cake. The girls also played for a moment with someone’s pet cat, until it responded to it’s master’s whistle and jumped up to follow her inside. The Germans certainly have well trained pets.

We began following the “Deutsche Märchen Straße” (Fairy Tale Road) signs, but we found them to be to few and far between to be practical guides. Luckily, we had the good German map we bought before, and were able to find our way to the next towns. Sometimes we followed the official road, but just as often, we straightened it out to make up some time when the towns didn’t seem to offer anything that was all that interesting.

Our next stop was Alsfeld, which claims to be the home of Little Red Riding Hood. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that it is the biggest town in the region that claims her, because there are a few towns in “Rotkäppchenland” (Little Red Riding Hood Country). A better translation of her nickname is “Little Red Cap,” and the people of this region say that it is their traditional clothes that gave her that name. Some internet research hinted to Scott that there was a statue of her somewhere in Alsfeld near their Rathaus, but he was never able to find a picture of it. As a result, we were not really surprised when the woman in their information center said that there is no such statue in town. Still, there were many pictures of apple-cheeked little girls in the “Little Red Cap” and traditional clothes of the region all over the brochures and postcards. We took a handful of those for the scrapbook. The town of Alsfeld itself is extremely picturesque. It, and many of the towns we are visiting, are also part of a collection of towns that feature their half-timbered architecture as part of a separate “Road” to follow. Alsfeld seemed particularly interesting looking. The Rathaus is very distinctive, and half-timbered buildings of several stories extended from the town center for several blocks in every direction.

At the visitor’s center in Alsfeld, Julie noticed a brochure for a bobsled run, similar to the one that we had to skip in the Black Forest. Since we had promised the girls that we would keep our eyes open for another one and since they had really spent a lot of time in the backseat of the car today, we surprised them by pulling in there next. Once again, Anna rode by herself, and Emma and Mom rode together, while Dad took pictures and babysat Emma’s fox. The girls rode the sleds twice and liked this one better than the one near Neuschwanstein. For one thing, this one is more like a roller coaster than a sled, and runs on two tracks while the riders are strapped in. It was much safer as a result. For another thing, it took you through some woods and scenery too. We ate dinner at the sled run. Everyone got jägerschnitzel (which for future reference is a pork cutlet, but this one came with a mushroom sauce) and pommes fritz (i.e., French fries). Four plates were way to much for all of us to eat, especially when the girls were anxious for a third sled ride.

After their third ride we started looking for a place to stay for tonight. We are in the town of Homberg (Efze). It took us a few tries, but we were able to find a hotel here for a reasonable price this time. The most noteworthy feature of the room is that its bathroom may actually be small than the on in Rothenberg, yet inexplicably, there are two showers.

One last note for today: Anastasia’s loose tooth has finally come out. We’re all glad to hear that because she has fretting over it and it had become a bit of an obsession for her. She hopes to get a Euro for it from the tooth fairy tonight. The Fairy Tale Road seems like an appropriate place for the Tooth Fairy to show up. We just hope that the girls don’t try to catch her and press her in a book like the have been hoping to do with any other fairies we might find.