Tour the Saffron Kingdom: Burg Rheinfels
Burg Rheinfels is the next stop in our Tour of the Seven Kingdoms! The Saffron Kingdom! The Seven Kingdoms fairy tale world is inspired by real castles in the Rhine and Mosel River valleys in Germany. Clip the map below to find all the tours: Inspired by the Rheinfels Castle: Zany Adventures for ages 9 […]
Tour Magenta Kingdom: Festung Ehrenbreitstein in Koblenz
This huge fortress houses several museums and restaurants and a Youth Hostel, in case the family wants to try sleeping inside a fortress! The imposing entrance to the fortress that guards the Rhine and Mosel Rivers from above. Ehrenbreitstein means “Honor Broad Stone”. The fortress overlooks the German city of Koblenz Koblenz is the next […]
Tour Cochem Kingdom: the real home of TROUBLE WITH PARSNIPS
Trouble With Parsnips For your reading pleasure, a shiny new edition is in the works! The nameless inventor princess of Cochem is headed to Kickstarter to build something new! Follow along! Steep vineyards going up to Reichsburg Cochem Reichsburg Cochem, the inspiration for the Cochem Kingdom in the Seven Kingdom Fairy Tales series: There were […]
Tour a Fairy Kingdom???
What does fairyland look like to you? Clear, rushing water and green leaves under the trees. Near Kell, Rhineland Pfalz. Germany. ©Laurel Decher, 2020. What does a Fairy Kingdom look like for you? On this hike, we walked for five or six hours and I got buckets of new ideas about the Fairy Kingdom. I […]
Tour the Blackfly Kingdom: Pfalzgrafenstein Castle
When we travel these days, we often drive or fly. In earlier times, the rivers were the highways. Big and long rivers, like the Rhine River in Germany were important for delivering people and things. [Is that why Amazon is named after a river in Brazil? I don’t know, do you?] If you visit, you […]
Tour a German publisher: Kiepenheuer and Witsch in Cologne
An office with a view–Cologne Cathedral is right there! Last week, our local library visited a local publisher . . . It’s a famous old German publisher: Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Their offices look right out onto the Cologne Cathedral. Their location next to the main Cologne rail station make it easy for their internationally renowned […]
Visual Story Structure with Cows
The idyllic Naafbachtal hiking trail is gentle on your eyes and on your knees. © Laurel Decher, 2017 Our story begins in the Naafbachtal . . . Naaf brook valley The Naafbachtal is a long valley full of meadows, originally slated to be a reservoir, and now a nature reserve. The lovely little Naaf brook […]
A Behind-the-Scenes Tour of Public Libraries in Germany
The city library of Cologne is a magical place! I got to go on a behind-the-scenes tour with volunteer librarians from my local library. Six floors of books, music, DVD’s to make any library fan happy. There’s even a special support office that supplies books and support for blind readers. Author Heinrich Böll’s archive […]