SCENIC ROADS - The map ... highlights tourist routes; notes feature points of interest. Because the road pattern today is little different from that in the Middle Ages, most routes offer a wealth of historic features. Efforts are under way to improve roads in former East Germany, where motorists should expect heavy traffic and delays due to construction. (1991)
FAIRY-TALE ROAD - Follow the Brothers Grimm to Hamelin to see a weekly Pied Piper pantomime and to Bremen, where a bronze donkey, dog, cat, and rooster immortalize another of their 210 tales. Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859) were born in Hanau, grew up in Steinau, and studied at Marburg's university. From Kassel they made story-gathering forays to the Harz Mountains. Nearby Reinhardswald may have inspired “Hansel and Gretel,” and 650-year-old Sababurg Castle, “Sleeping Beauty.”
RIVER ROAD - Father Rhine's most dramatic reach in the castle-lined gorge between Bingen and Koblenz, where Julius Caesar bridged the river in 55 B.C. Cologne, Bonn, and Mainz (with its six-towered Romanesque cathedral) also began as Roman settlements. Some of Germany's finest wines come from the Rheingau and the Mosel Valley near Bernkastel-Kues. Bad Durkheim host the largest wine festval, but those in Mainz, Rudenheim, Trier, Koblenz, and Bacharach are celebrated with equal abondon.
BLACK FOREST ROAD - Grand views (from the Feldberg, for instance), winter resorts, and spas (Romans were the first to tap thermal springs at Baden-Baden) are main attractions in the Black Forest – named for the darkness of its lofty firs. Here craftsmen invented the cuckoo clock in the early 1700s, and clockmaking remains important around Furtwagen and Triberg. The unversity town of Freiburg has one of Germany's most splendid medieval cathedrals.
ROMANTIC ROAD - Rising from vineyards to snowfields, this road links ancient towns. In Wurzburg sights include Marienberg castle, churches with wood carvings by Tilman Riemenschneider (circa 1460-1531), and the baroque Residenz by Balthasar Neumann. The walled towns of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Dinkelsbuhl, and Nordlingen lead to Ausburg, a Roman garrison that became the headquarters of medieval merchants.
ALPINE ROAD - Garmisch-Partenkirchen is famous for winter sports, but brilliantly painted Mittenwald may be the most exquisite of the Alpine villages. Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria founded Ettal Monastery in 1440, embellished by a baroque dome and rococo interior. During the late 1800s one of his descendants built extravagant Neuschwanstein Castle, Herrenchiemsee, and Linderhof near Oberammergau – scene of Passion plays held every decade since 1634.
CASTLE AND THURINGIA ROAD - Near baroque Mannheim is the old university town of Heidelberg; castles flank the route to Nurnberg and its fortress. Bamberg offers a four-spired Gothic cathedral and a town hall with a monumental rococo doorway. A hulking castle presides over Coburg. In Thuringer Wald the Rennsteig hiking trail begins near Eisenach (J.S. Bach's birthplace). Baroque Weimar was the birthplace of the German republic (1919-1933).
SAXON ROAD - “Wherever I went, a Saxon had been there before me,” observed German geographer Alexander von Humboldt. Silver from the Erzgebirge enabled Saxony's kings to travel abroad and build at home. For a time Konigstein Castle was their treasury. The Augustan kings made Dresden a showpiece and bequeathed Moritzburg hunting lodge, Pillnitz Palace, and Meissen porcelain. Wooden toys from Seiffen were first sold at the Leipzig Fair in 1699.
MARTIN LUTHER ROAD - Born in Eisleben in 1483, Luther studied at Erfurt's university before entering the town's Augustinian monastery. In 1517 he nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Four years later, in hiding in Eisenach's Wartburg castle, Luther translated the Bible into German. Two years before his death, he consecrated Germany's first Protestant church, in Torgau, where American and Soviet troops met in victory on April 25, 1945.
HARZ MOUNTAINS ROAD - Myth-shrouded Brocken, the highest point in the Harz Mountains, sits a few kilometers from the old border between East and West Germany. To the north lie medieval Goslar and spas such as Bad Harzburg; to the east, half-timbered towns like Quedlinburg and Wernigerode are undergoing restoration. Note: multi-towered Halberstadt, Nordhausen, with its Gothic cathedral; and Heimkehle, site of Germany's largest gypsum cave.
LAKES ROAD - Retreating glaciers created the rolling hills and meltwater lakes – popular fishing spots – of this region of woods and manicured fields. The lakes country was settled in Neolithic times, and large Bronze Age burial mounds have been found. The medieval gates of Neubrandenburg, founded in 1248, still stand; Neustrelitz preserves a remarkable baroque orangery (1744); Schwerin has a notable 19th-century castle.
ALPINE-BALTIC ROAD - South of Luneburg, heath tinges the moors purple in August. Celle's ducal palace combines Gothic, Renaissance, baroque, and rococo styles. From Gottingen – renouned for its university – the 1,109-mile road winds through wooded Hessen, past Aschaffenburg's immense Renaissance palace, into Schwabisch Hall, with its market square. Beyond Eichstatt, rebuilt in the baroque style after the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) it crosses the Danube. Nearby Wolnzach is the heart of Germany's hops district; Landshut stages the nation's most elaborate historical festival.
COASTAL ROAD - Trading, fishing, holidaymaking - destinies along this road have been tied to the sea. The North Sea coast is a collage of reclaimed marshes, lighthouses, and windmills. Bathers discovered Norderney Island in 1797; today Sylt draws crowds. Stralsund, a redbrick Gothic town, and the island of Rugen, with its megalithic tombs, are busy resorts on the Baltic side. During the Middle Ages, Lubeck was queen of the Hanseatic League.
BERLIN - No longer a split personality, this historic seat of Prussia is once again the capital of all Germany. Despite monolithic Soviet-style development, former East Berlin preserves the flavor of the city's 750-year history. Note: baroque Charlottenburg Palace; Tiergarten, once a royal hunting ground; Unter den Linden, a broad avenue laid out in 1647; the neoclassical Brandenburg Gate (1788).
HAMBURG - Already thriving by 1189 when Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa granted it trading privieges, Hamburg calls itself Germany's Gateway to the World. Home of Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), today it is a sophisticated city with a seamy side – the infamous Reeperbahn. Hamburg is also a place of bridges, wharves, and warehouses, and it claims Europe's largest shopping complex. Note: Speicherstadt, the warehouse city; the Fischmarkt, a weekly market since 1703.
COLOGNE - “City of dreams,” wrote Victor Hugo. Some say divine intervention spared the twin spires of Cologne's cathedral (built between 1248 and 1880) from the Allied bombs that flattend this ancient city. Note: ruins of the wall that surrounded the Roman garrison, Colonia Agrippina; medieval Jewish ritual bath, adjacent to the Roman governor's palace (Praetorium); Romanesque churches, such as St. Pantaleon; gabled houses of the restored 19th-century Altstadt (Old City); 4711 House, where eau de cologne was first distilled; art museum complex (1986).
MUNICH - Even when it isn't Oktoberfest, Munich, with hundreds of beer gardens, has fun. Bavaria's pride, the city was founded by monks in the eighth century. Note: Marienplatz; rebuilt to match the Gothic original, with its Glockenspiel; twin-domed Frauenkirche, begun in 1468; Deutsches Museum, the world's largest technology collection; Englischer Garten, Europe's largest urban park.
DRESDEN - Before the Allied firebombing of World War II, Dresden represented the pinnacle of the baroque and rococo styles, originally given substances by the Saxon kings Augustus the Strong and Augustus III (1694-1763). Many buildings have been restored. The Zwinger Palace ... contains treasures ranging from Meissen porcelain to Raphael's “Sistine Madonna” and works by Rembrandt and Titian. Note: Semper Opera House (1878); Kreuzkirche, with its 775-year-old boys's choir; Frauenkirche, left in ruins as a reminder of the horrors of war.
“Germany. Where is it?” wondered poet Friedrich von Schiller in 1797, when the country comprised a multitude of petty kingdoms and territories. Two centuries later, in the aftermath of reunification, the question still holds true.
Physically Germany presents severl faces; an undulating glacial plain in the north; forested massifs in the midsection and southwest; Alpine peaks in the south, where the Zugspitze juts nearly 10,000 feet. Great rivers carve the land, among them the Rhine, Elbe, and Danube.
The human imprint is no less diverse. These maps and paintings feature will-known cities and scenic attractions, but the traveler who branches out will be rewarded with unexpected delights – a small but perfectly proportioned castle, an immaculate half-timbered farmhouse, a cobbled street lined iwth nedieval buildings. Even a Roman ruin.
The Romans built a string of forts – from Cologne, Bonn and Mainz to Ausberg and Regensburg – to guard their Rhine-Danube frontier against Franks, Goths, Vandals, Saxons, alemanni, and other Germanic tribes. By the late 700s Charlemagne, King of the Franks, had Christianized his rivals. Order cam also to the land, exemplified by the row village (Strassendorf) in former Frankish areas and the circular defensive village (Rundling) in the eastern, Slavic borderlands.
Imposing Romanesque cathedrals – the ones built in Speyer and Worms at the close of the tenth century are especially fine – proclaimed the influence of the church and the wealth of towns.
By 1400 almost every major town in Germany today had been founded; many were destroyed in World War II but have undergone meticulous restoration. Settlements burgeoned at river crossing (the two Frankfurts), on trade routes (Bremen, Leipzig, and Magdenburg), and around monasteries or abbeys (Munich). Others grew around castles (Nurnberg), and many of the more than 10,000 fortresses that defended the crazy quilt of feudal kingdoms can be visited today. Market towns were protected by thik walls, well preserved in Quedlinburg and Dinkelsbuhl.
Cologne was a major European city by 1248, when work began on its cathedral, a soaring example – like those in Freiburg, Strasbourg, and Ulm – of the Gothic style of northern France. The adoption of northern Italy's baroque style in the 1600s saw Germany out of the tumult of the Reformation and into a golden age. The baroque towns vary widely: Karlsruhe has a radical plan; Mannheim is on a grid; Neustrelitz is star-shaped. Baroque masterworks include the Residenz in Wurzburg and the Eremitage – with its geometric garden – in Bayreuth, where a yearly music festival nonors native son Richard Wagner (1813-1883).
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) composed in Leipzig, the university town where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) studied. Goethe's later home, Weimar, was the center of Germany's literary universe; writers of the Weimar classic school emphasied morality and individual freedom. Outside Weimar iis the memorial to the victims of the concentration camp at Buchenwald – a bleak reminder of how elusive those qualities can be.
That literature is accessible to Germany's 79.5 million citizens (1991 data) can be credited in large part to Martin Luther, whose translation of the Bible in 1521 provided the basis for a written vernacular. Yet even today there are folk in Bavaria who cannot understand farmers in Schleswig-Holstein. Differences not only of dialect but also of temperament, religion, folklore, dress, and diet distinguish Rhinelanders from Bavarians, Swabians from Hessians, Frisians from Prussians.
All Germans love a festival, and as the saying goes, “Whoever is not foolish at Karneval is foolish the rest of the year.” Pre-Lenten Karneval is celebrated with special gusto in Catholic cities such as Cologne and Mainz. Other festivals have pagan origins. Drachenstich (The Dragon-Slaying) has preoccupied Furth im Wald every August since the 1500s. As brass bands play, knights battle a mechanical dragon, their resolve strengthened by beer.
If Germans are serious about their hundreds of varieties of wines, they could be called fanatical about their 5,000 different brews. German food, no less robust also defies generalization. There are 300 kinds of bread, 1,500 types of Wurst, and pastries too numerous to count. Smoked ell is a specialty in Hamburg, pickled pork knuckles with sauerkraut in Berlin, There's corned veal with dumplings in Thuringia and chocolate cake with cherry schnapps in the Black Forest.
For the over indulged or footsore traveler, immersion in a mineral bath at one of the hundreds of spas restores the body. IT also frees the mind to contemplate landscapes old and new that make the one and many Germanys a journey into surprise.
Herzegovina
