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THE
PIED PIPER put his lips to the flute and blew a haunting
tune. Sarah couldn’t help but scamper after him.
When is a fairy tale not a fairy tale? According to the brothers,
when a story is rooted in a real place or time, it becomes a legend. My
penultimate stop, Hamelin, is home to arguably the most famous of
these anywhere, apparently based on the actual disappearance of
many of the town’s young people in 1284.
There’s no escaping the legacy of the story here. Statues, rat-
imprinted road markers, a Ratcatcher’s House restaurant
(
rattenfaengerhaus.de
)
serving ‘rat’-based dishes. On the street
where the childrenwere said tohavebeen ledaway, Bungelosenstrasse
(
Drumless Street), no music is allowed. And passions still run high:
“
It’s very emotional,” says Christian Garbe, one of six part-time Pied
Pipers who act as tour guides in the town. “Sometimes when I play
him, I feel tears come to my eyes.”
Not sure what to make of this confession, I duck into the local
museum where a sketch of the town’s old church window, long
demolished, shows a man in multicoloured clothing. The most widely
believed theory is that he was actually a local landowner who took
the children to the promise of a better life in Eastern Europe. En route,
all of them drowned. Even more eye-catching is a Nazi propaganda
poster from the 1930s showing soldiers marching in a 650th
commemoration, a reminder that the Grimm stories almost fell out of
favour after World War II because of their popularity among the
Nazis. Hitler saw the stories as steeped in traditional German values
and ordered every family to have a copy of the book.
The last leg of the journey soon beckons, and it’s pedal to the metal
to the final stop, where the route ends by a statue of Bremen’s Town
Musicians. Posing for the requisite snap by the musical donkey, dog,
cat and crow, I ponder my journey through Grimm-land. The scenery
has been wonderful, I’ve learned a lot about the brothers and their
inspiration, and in the end even the autobahn wasn’t so scary.
I guess you could even say, it all ended happily ever after.
*
FOR T&CS SEE P171
Cologne
need to know
(
160
)
estimated number of languages Grimms’
fairy tales have been translated into
(
1883
)
year the Grimm brothers began a German
dictionary that wasn’t finished until 1960
( 1
4.30
)
time on Sundays Sleeping Beauty is
performed at Castle Sababurg
easyJet
flies to Cologne from London Gatwick.
See our insider guide on page 146. Book
online at easyJet.com
easyJet Holidays
Two nights B&B at the three-star Holiday
Inn Express Muelheim, Cologne, departing
London Gatwick on 29 April, costs from
£103 per person. easyJet.com/holidays*
ART’OTEL COLOGNE
In the historic city centre, enjoy the view
from the terrace bar of this modern hotel
on the Rhine. Book at hotels.easyJet.com
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