Hanau - Parks and Fairy Tales

Pull out your book of fairy tales.  We are going to take you on a magic journey with the Brothers Grimm.  Our first stop is Hanau, just a short trip from Frankfurt. The old town square of Hanau boasts a monument to the Grimm brothers.  We picked a Saturday morning when the market was bustling with people.  We circled around for about twenty minutes and finally decided we were wasting valuable time, so we plugged into our GPS the Grimm Museum and started off, not realizing it was taking us to another city; we carried on anyway.  The brothers were born in Hanau.  We will have a chance to visit it again.


You have to know a little about the Brothers Grimm to appreciate the flavor they put into their collection of stories.  I have included a little background from other sources:

" Their early childhood was spent in the countryside in what has been described as an "idyllic" state.  When the eldest brother, Jacob, was eleven years old, their father, Philip Wilhelm, died and the family moved into a cramped urban residence.  Two years later, the children's grandfather also died, leaving them and their mother to struggle in reduced circumstances.  It has been argued that this is the reason behind the Brothers' tendency to idealize and excuse fathers, leaving a predominance of female villains in the tales—the infamous wicked stepmothers, for example, the evil stepmother and stepsisters in “Cinderella.”  However, this opinion, ignores the fact that the brothers were collectors of folk tales, not their authors."  

Alsfeld  was our next stop and it has to be the most picturesque town we have seen to-date.  Around every corner  was a street full of timber-frame houses with dates like 1504, 1525.  It was like being back in the sixteenth century.  The Rauthaus  was worth the trip alone.   The pharmacy across the street has operated as such for several centuries.  How is that for a local drug store.   The narrow cobble stone streets, with these two and three story houses still occupied with families carrying on their daily activities, reminds us of how in many ways, time has not changed the routines of life.


On one street, there is a fountain presided over by a goose girl in a costume of the period which was noticed by the Grimm brothers and inspired them as to how to describe Little Red Riding Hood.  As we took our walking tour, I wondered what it would be like to be surrounded by this history.  Houses that have been continuously occupied for hundreds of years.  Most bottom floors now house quaint shops appealing to residents and      tourists alike.

We had to hurry to stay on schedule so we were off to Kassel, a city of 200,000, about two hours from Frankfurt.  This city promised to provide a varied array of architecture, art, folklore and Greek artifacts.  The highlight had to be the Museum of Art.  The huge museum housed what has to be the finest collection of art in Germany.  The city had many museums, one of which was the oldest museum in Europe.  We saw the works of many masters including Rubins and Rembrandt, with the prize of the collection, one of his masterpieces, depicting Israel blessing Ephraim over the birthright son Manasseh.  The first floor was Greek art and artifacts, the second housed the works of Italian masters, the third Dutch artists and finally the fourth, many of the most famous artists, including Rubins and Rembrandt.  After Versailles, it is the best collection in Europe.

We spent two hours on the Park surrounding the museum site.  With the leaves in full colour and 868 acres to explore I was game to go, Arendje not so much, so I hiked up this steep slope to see an old castle called Lowenburg.  It is unique, as you will see by the previous link.  The Landgrave also built the  museum as his personal residence.  He was a true romantic and his designs for the park, castle,  water falls, numerous gazebos, green houses and the capstone a huge statue of a Hercules on top of a ridge.  I hiked to the top, without Arendje.  She preferred to stay below and cheer me on.  Most went up by bus via a park road.  In the summer time, it must be pretty spectacular as they have cascading falls come all the way down the front .

This last picture was a two kilometer hike down from the Hercules statue.  The trees in the park contained many that were two hundred years old or more. There were some majestic oaks, elms, fir, cedar and maples. the colour and pungent odor of fall in the air made it a very pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon.