And so, day two of our road trip began.
Our first stop: Hermanns Denkmal. Hermann is a modern translation of the original name, Arminius.He is known to have led a coalition of several Germanic tribes in rising against Rome. Three Roman legions were destroyed and because of this, Germania did not become a Roman province.
As the unifier of several Germanic tribes and the liberator of Germania, Hermann became an important symbolic figure for the Germans and thus this statue was built. It took 37 years to build the monument and it has a total height of 53,44 meters.
The monument exists of two parts, a stone pedestal and the figure of Hermann himself. There’s a staircase inside the pedestal which enables visitors to go up.
This morning when my dad and I were having breakfast he told me that he would be sad if he died without seeing a forest crocodile. “Yeah and when you see one, you will run away,” I said in return. Well, I was wrong…
Of course, the forest witch turned this crocodile into… em, a wooden forest crocodile once he started to become too powerful. Yep, more fairy tales from dad. Once we made it past this innocent creature we arrived at the mysterious Stones of Externstein. There is not much known about their precise origin, but the place has most likely served as an important shrine for Germanic paganism. Without a trace of fear in our bodies, we climbed up and enjoyed the view.
We continued our road trip down the path of memory lane; my dad’s memories. We visited an old house of my grandparents and made a stop at a nearby lake. According to my dad (grandma, mum and aunt), the boat there used to do the waltz. We went aboard but sadly the tradition no longer exists.
Our last stop was in Hameln, a place known to many as the town of the Pied Piper. We saw yet another statue, some rats (engraved in stones) and a play. I loved the fairy tale of Pied Piper as a kid and felt quite excited about visiting Hameln. It’s a very nice place to have seen.
Tomorrow we’ll head in the direction of…
…and go back home.
19/08/2015
Oh Malou, ik heb wat geschreven maar alles is plotseling weg. Geen moed meer om het te herhalen. Vond het een mooie trip. Wens je het allerbeste!
Peter en ik gingen vroeger ook altijd kastelen, bergen met mooie rotsformaties en tuinen bekijken in onze vakanties en die rotsformaties, die je bezocht hebt met je vader vind ik ook heel mooi. Is die krokodil nou boven op die rots?