Tuesday June 5th 2018 - Kassel

On Tuesday we went to Kassel. Kassel is the focal point of the German Fairy Tale Route, a romantic tourist route that stretches from Hanau to Bremen. The Brothers Grimm lived and worked in Kassel and it was here they wrote a large part of their famous collection of fairy tales. Our intention was to go to the Brothers Grimm Museum. Kassel is a big town/city – quite modern and not terribly attractive to us though it had some old buildings. There is a lot of renovations going on so that doesn’t help the appearance. 

Louis Spohr - he was a German composer, violinist and conductor. He died in Kassel in 1859.

The Grimm Brothers.

View from the Brothers Grimm Museum

 After a coffee and a visit to the tourist office we went looking for the Grimm museum. There was only one sign for it so we wandered quite a bit even after asking 2 people the way. Finally we went into another museum and got directions. It’s a reasonably new museum and concentrates mainly on the dictionary the Grimm brothers compiled. Each area is introduced by a letter but not in alphabetical order. There is great use of a variety of media and it is children friendly too. It was worth going to Kassel for this museum. I also had the nicest cake in the cafe.

This was a park just down from the Brothers Grimm Museum.

Die Fremden (The Strangers). These figures are on the column portal of the former Red Palace. It is a group of people in folkloristic clothing with their improvised luggage. They are obviously of different ethnic and geographical backgrounds. They embody exclusion and lack of social integration.

Later on we went to Bergpark Wilhelmshohne to see the Hercules monument and to see the Palace which is under restoration. A main feature is the cascades of water starting at the base of the Hercules monument and flowing down to the aqueduct before arriving at the lake of the castle where a fountain ends the spectacle. Unfortunately the water wasn't flowing while we were there but I can imagine it would be fantastic.