Getting Oriented

The Fairy-Tale Road begins 20 minutes east of Frankfurt in the city of Hanau, and from there wends its way north 700 km (about 430 mi) to the North Sea port of Bremerhaven, through the states of Hesse and Lower Saxony, following the Fulda and Weser rivers and traversing countryside as beguiling as any other in northern Europe. It may not have the glamour of the Romantic Road or the cosmopolitan flair of Germany's great cities, but neither does it have the crowds and commercialism.