Well, some of the major newspapers appear to be on the same wavelength since The New York Times also just published an article about traveling along the Fairy Tale Road in Germany: On the Trail of Hansel and Gretel in Germany by David G. Allan.
I think it is a plot to torture me that I am not traveling far from home this year...but it is another great article with recommended sites for touring and lodging.
An excerpt:
Or you could do what I did, accompanied by my wife, Kate, and our 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Alice: drive the Fairy Tale Road in Germany, an official but unmarked route designed by local tourism officials to promote sites, some authentic, some imaginary. The 350-plus-mile route between Frankfurt and Bremen snakes past locations that include the actual homes of the Grimms and the fantasy ones of Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Hansel and Gretel, along with a mix of foreboding forests, striking towers and even some genuine castles.
Alice’s introduction to the world of the Grimm tales began on our flight, as I read to her from the brothers’ version of Cinderella. “Once upon a time there was a girl named Isabella whose mother had died,” I started, immediately rediscovering how much death, vice and fear is woven into the Grimms’ stories. (Their first volume included a gruesome story titled “How Some Children Played at Slaughtering.”) As I continued, I did some on-the-spot Disney-fication, glossing over hungry wolves and murderous stepmothers to get to the happy endings. But even sugar-coated, the stories hooked Alice. Over the week, our car rides featured her backseat-spun yarns that began, “Once upon a time there was a girl named Alice ...“
And this article also reminds us that the bicentennial of the Grimms's first publication of their fairy tales is in 2012, not that far down the road. Now I have to start pondering how we'll celebrate that one on SurLaLune.
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