![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
May. 17th, 2023 07:58 pm
Germany, Friday, Continued
We drive north along the Rhine. It’s astonishingly beautiful, mountains covered with pale green trees and the river running between them. And there are other castles high on the mountains, including two enemies facing each other called Katz and Maus.
We pass the Lorelei, a statue at the base of a hill at a sharp turn in the Rhine. Supposedly she sits there combing her hair and singing, and lures sailors to their deaths. I’d wanted to see her because of something my father told me, that the Nazis had wanted to ban Heinrich Heine’s poem “Lorelei” because Heine was Jewish (though he had converted) but they couldn’t bring themselves to get rid of it, so they published it as by “Author Unknown.”
I’d liked this account when I first heard it. I thought it showed something about the power of stories, the way they endure despite everything, even censorship. Then I grew up and became a writer, and the treatment of Heine pissed me off. Authors should get credit for their work, dammit.
We stop for lunch at a small town called Bacharach, possibly named after Bacchus. It’s also quaint, with tall narrow houses and winding streets. Then we reach Koblenz and our destination for the night, a youth hostel in a former fortress. The fortress is high on a mountain, and you can only get to it by another funicular.
We pass the Lorelei, a statue at the base of a hill at a sharp turn in the Rhine. Supposedly she sits there combing her hair and singing, and lures sailors to their deaths. I’d wanted to see her because of something my father told me, that the Nazis had wanted to ban Heinrich Heine’s poem “Lorelei” because Heine was Jewish (though he had converted) but they couldn’t bring themselves to get rid of it, so they published it as by “Author Unknown.”
I’d liked this account when I first heard it. I thought it showed something about the power of stories, the way they endure despite everything, even censorship. Then I grew up and became a writer, and the treatment of Heine pissed me off. Authors should get credit for their work, dammit.
We stop for lunch at a small town called Bacharach, possibly named after Bacchus. It’s also quaint, with tall narrow houses and winding streets. Then we reach Koblenz and our destination for the night, a youth hostel in a former fortress. The fortress is high on a mountain, and you can only get to it by another funicular.
