Steinau Yard Art

After Heinrich finished at the Grimms' home he wandered through the rest of the town. He found some fun things that the people used to decorate or symbolize their city. One of the buildings in town was a marionette hall or a place where puppet show are given. In the window were a couple of the puppets that the performers use.

Across the street was a restaurant with an outside dining area. (Just for the summer. In the winter the chairs are inside)  Around the edge were some of the flower boxes that are everywhere in Germany. If you look real carefully you can see the red mushrooms with white dots. These are a kind of symbol for this part of Germany.

 

There were some playful art pieces as well. Heinrich really liked the snail baby. There was a baby fairy that was hiding inside a snail shell.

 

 

   Another fun yard art was a mother cat and her kittens wandering through one of the flower boxes by someone's door.

 

 

Heinrich found some carved statues too. A really nice one was down on the walking park around the castle moat. It was carved out of an old tree trunk and looked like a big deer with antlers.

 

 

On the way out of town Heinrich saw one last statue. It was by a fountain in the town. The statue was a family of pigs playing in the water with a couple of people watching. Pigs are very common in German food and pork is one of the most common meats. These pigs looked like they were having too much fun to worry about being dinner.

 

Grimms home

Heinrich enjoyed his walk through Steinau even thou it was raining quite a bit. He wandered down one of the streets and found a sign on a stone wall next to the gate. Heinrich's German is still coming along slowly but he could figure our the top line. It meant the Bother Grimms House in Steinau. He decided to go in and see what was there.
 

The house where the brothers lived when they were teenagers was actually pretty large. Their father was a prosperous man and they had a nice life with a good education. Most of the other homes in the town were much smaller.

To the side of the house the archaeologist have uncovered the medieval road that ran through the town. It was one of the main roads in Germany and it ran right next to the family's house. Originally the road was flat but after years and years of carts travelling on the road there are huge ruts cut into the stones.

 

 On the side of the house, there was another sign that looked the one at the entrance. This sign described a little sunken garden. In the garden were examples of the plants that are included in the Grimms Brother tales.

 

 

Down in the garden were little squares of several different kinds of plants. Some of them were very pretty and some of them seemed to be poisonous. They were for looking, not tasting.

 

Back behind the Brother’s house was a quiet sitting garden. Back against the wall was a reminder that Heinrich was still on the Fairy Tale Road. When he looked closely he could see seven little statues. Then he realized they were the Seven Dwarves from the Snow White story.

 

 

Steinau Fountain

The base of the fountain has a water spout with a water spitting dragon. On the edge is a princess and in the fountain is the Frog Prince.

 

On the pillar were many pictures from different fairy tales. One of the panels shows the wolf in the story of Little Red Riding hood. The wolf is shown attacking the grandmother in her bed.

There is the picture of the candy covered gingerbread house of the old witch in the story of Hansel and Gretel. If you look carefully you can see a golden pretzel over the door.

Another square shows the princess riding away with her charming prince. It isn’t clear which princess it is but most of them tend to ride off with their prince to live happily ever after.

On the very top of the pillar is the golden hair of Rapunzel dangling over the side and down to a prince who is trying to climb up the braids.

One of the scariest images is of a devil face peering out from some trees. It reminded Heinrich of the stories about scary things that lived out in the woods.

Inside Steinau

Inside Steinau Heinrich parked next to an old house that was pretty small but looked very European. At the end of the building there was a fountain of water.

When Heinrich looked closer at the fountain he could see that there was a face carved into the stone around the tap. If you look carefully you can see that the tap looks like it is sticking out of the mouth of the face.

Around the corner Heinrich found a display case with pictures of several fairy tale stories. He knew he was getting closer to the Fairy Tale section of Steinau.

A little further down the road Heinrich found the town hall or as they call it here the Rat Haus. In the courtyard of the Rat Haus there was a very nice fountain.

 

As Heinrich got closer to the tower he recognized several parts of the fountain were actually telling some of the fairy tale stories.