Fairy Tales Abroad!

May 24, 2017

One of our co-founders, Sara Cleto, has recently returned from two weeks in Germany, a country with a rich folkloric history. We’d like to share some of her fairy-tale highlights with you!

A particularly delightful thing about Germany is that there are little nods to fairy tales everywhere. Between a burger place called “Käppchen” to a popular wine label of the same name to statues on street corners, fairy tales, especially Little Red Riding Hood, add a dash of magic to the city-scapes.

A burger joint named for the little girl in red!
Little Red confronts the wolf while Sara cackles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Germany is famous for its castles, most notably those constructed by Ludwig II. Though by all accounts he was not a very effective king, he had a thing for grandeur and drama, leading to his decision to build 3 new castles and 7 hunting lodges simultaneously. Most of them were never finished, including Neuschwanstein, which was built as an homage to Wagner and his operas. Neuschwanstein was one of Disney’s inspirations when he created Cinderella’s castle, so it was especially amazing seeing this one in person.

There is a fairy-tale castle behind Sara’s face.
JUST LOOK AT IT! (source: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much to our eternal delight, we discovered that there is a fairy-tale bar called, appropriately enough, Fairytale. This place is a fairy-tale lover’s dream. All the drinks are named after fairy-tale characters and figures, from the “Cinderella” (which is served in a glass slipper!) to the Black Knight to the Cheshire Cat. The low lighting and magical touches all around the room, including shimmering tables, woodcut prints, strange vials, and antique fairy-tale books that have been transformed into talking menus with a windup butterfly that darts out of pages as you turn them, makes you feel like you have stumbled into Wonderland.

Sara fearlessly drinking from an actual glass slipper.
The book-menu!
Menu page featuring the Cinderella cocktail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, perhaps the most famous fairy-tale collectors and editors in the Western world, are buried in Berlin, so a pilgrimage was necessary.

Sara left a scrap of paper with the final line of the final fairy tale in “Children and Household Tales” on Jacob Grimms’ grave.

If you could go on a fairy-tale pilgrimage, where would you go? What would you see?

Comments

  1. This looks amazing! I’d love to visit Germany someday. I went through it on a bus en-route to Prague, and it passed through Kassel whilst I pawed at the windows haha! I’d also love to go to Efteling in the Netherlands, and to the fairy pools on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.

    1. Prague is such a magical place, too! The Charles Bridge, the astronomical clock, the Prague Castle… I’d love to visit the Netherlands and the Isle of Skye someday!

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