After having taken a look at the Hermannsdenkmal last week, I stayed overnight in Detmold, the nearest town. It’s a small, provincial place which, despite its exceptionally well-preserved old centre and attractive castle, has never quite made it into the big leagues of German day-trip destinations. That honour seems – in terms of medieval cities – to be have been reserved for Lübeck, Münster and Bamberg.

Yet, as I found out, the Detmolders are not disheartened, and are making a concerted effort to use the attention that the two-thousandth anniversary of the gigantic Varusschlacht – you know, the one from the start of Gladiator –has focused on the area to try and parley their neat little old-town into a big tourist attraction.

Their hope is that, as well as looking at the huge statue of Hermann and then seeing the exhibition about how he was mythologised and instrumentalised in the movement towards German nationalism, visitors will want to discover more about Detmold itself. It may sound like a fond hope, but it’s the best chance they’re gonna have, realistically speaking, for at least another 499 years.

So they’ve got to make the most of it, and seem to be operating a relatively successful strategy: invest a lot of money in a big ol’ cultural festival and send for the journalists.

This festival doesn’t necessarily have to have much to do with the actual reason for the anniversary – I mean, jeez, there’s only so many legionaries and barbarians a guy can take in at once, anyway. I, for example, was present for the summer concerts on 18^th July, with fine recitations of Rosenkavalier and La Traviata. Great opera. Sod-all to do with Hermann and killin’ Romans, but great opera nonetheless…

Having said that, in the land of Hermann, you can’t really get away from him, even if you try. For the Varusschlacht, the monumental battle he won, was nothing less than the ultimate edition of Germany vs. Italy, Barbarians vs. Romans, the unwashed vs. the inventors of modern plumbing.

The opera performance, for example, was held behind Detmold’s musical university, outside in the gardens. Now, holding an opera performance outside is something you can do in Italy; it’s not a sensible idea in Germany if you don’t like getting wet.

Having said that, your average German is tough enough to hold out against the odd spot of precipitation, a fact which Tacitus commented on in his summary of the events of AD 9., where the Germanic tribes waited for bad weather in which to ambush the Romans.

Tacitus also commented in his Varus annals on the Germanic tribes’ love of “plain, trencherman’s fare. They eat solely to fill themselves up, using very little seasoning”. In terms of drinking, Germans were, as far as he could tell, “completely incapable of stopping. The easiest way to win the war against them would in fact have been to leave a few barrels of wine open and then fight them after they had emptied them. And empty them they surely would.”

These quotations, by the way, are proffered in the exhibition about the mythologisation of Hermann, so they were quite present in my mind as I took in the open-air opera. So I couldn’t help but think of them as the German audience sat in the rain, making periodic trips to the Bratwurst sausage stand and mobile beer-vendor parked up at the back of the park.

I wonder if these plucky merchants picked up the same cultural programme leaflet as I did? If so, they’re bound to do a roaring trade in the last week of August, when Dutch musician Herman van Veen comes along to put on a ten-day run of musical theatre; I suppose you can’t complain about this event not having much connection to the battle, to be honest, since the guy is called Herman – albeit with one “n”.

The sausage-seller is bound to make even better money in September, when Detmold offers the entire Ring-cycle – possibly the most Germanic high-cultural institution in existence. Spread over five evenings, there’s a good chance that there’ll be rain and that the audience will need extra, fittingly Germanic sustenance.

The other food-vendors likely to do well are the ones in the chic little old town. They too offer sparingly-seasoned food for hungry barbarians, such as the local speciality, Pickert, a rich potato pancake served with butter, liver sausage and dark treacle (it’s far tastier than it sounds).

And eating one of those in Detmold, looking forward to a spot of opera, certainly was a highlight of my summer, and one that I would highly recommend.

And in trying out that ultimate European cultural mix: beer and opera.

Check out Brian’s amusing and entertaining short video clips on different aspects of German culture here: www.lostindeutschland.de