On a sunny day the view from the Hercules monument is spectacular. Photo (cc) flickr user andreasmarx

Once upon a time I had a friend, another fresh-off-the plane American ex-pat au pairing in Germany, who wanted to see the fairy tale road.  The Brothers Grimm, you see, had travelled all over Germany collecting local yarns and inspiration for the fairy tales that would make them famous worldwide.  The places where they had lived, worked, and visited comprise the fairy tale road.

The clock that, just maybe, had turned Cinderella’s coach into a pumpkin when it struck twelve and the city where the pied piper had played, she told me, were on the 600 kilometer route that runs from Hanau to Hamburg.  So one rainy Sunday morning we got up at 6 am, bought a Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket, and got on a regional train to Kassel, one of the most popular stops along the fairy tale road.