The Biggest Funfair on the Rhine is organised by Düsseldorf’s St. Sebastian shooting club, which dates back almost 700 years and currently numbers more than 1,500 members. It’s held in celebration of the club’s patron St. Apollinaris, whose feast day is on 23 July. The highlight is the historical parade, one of the biggest and most spectacular in Germany, with over 3,000 uniformed marksmen, marching bands and horse-drawn carriages.

St. Apollinaris was declared Düsseldorf’s patron saint when the city acquired some of the martyr’s relics in around 1300. A beautiful shrine, now in St. Lambert’s Church in the old town, was built in his honour. Eventually the annual commemorations evolved into a fair at which it was customary for the club St. Sebastianus Schützenverein 1316 e.V. to shoot dummy birds. Whoever shot down the bird was named shooting king for that year – a tradition that still continues today. Apart from this, the fair has changed dramatically. Nowadays the 165,000 square metre fairground on the bank of the Rhine boasts masses of rides from Germany and abroad, which are all geared up to thrill more than four million visitors from all over the world. Everyone looks forward to the historical parade – and the sensational fireworks above the city. Those in the know will tell you that the best place to view the fireworks is from the middle of the Rhine on board the MS Riverstar, an elegant vessel whose wood and brass fittings hark back to the glory days of travel. Sadly the boat can only accommodate around 170 passengers – so early booking is advised.

Picture by Rainer Driesen

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Want to join in European Car Free Day? The aim of this initiative held every 22 September is to raise awareness about climate change by encouraging people to make their routine journeys on foot, by bike or by public transport. This year, as well as leaving your car at home, we invite you to inject some fun into it: get away to the European cities that are implementing policies to favour pedestrians and take a quiet stroll through the streets without worrying about the traffic.

A few kilometers from Hanover lies the city of Hamelin, known by the Brothers Grimm tale The Pied Piper of Hamelin. This city is part of the fairytale path you can take through Germany.

If you walk along the streets, you will find many references to the story. The Pied Piper freed the city from a plague of rats with his flute playing a hypnotic melody with which led them to the river to drown. Having received no reward, he decided to take revenge taking children from the city to enclose them in a cave.

Now, you can explore the city through a rat line drawn on the ground, visiting the house recreated by flutist or spend Bungelosenstrasse Street (street without drums) which says that the piper met for kidnapping children

The cobbled streets of Hamelin, the towers and walls of the Middle Ages still preserved its charming houses or make you feel likr you are really in a tale city.

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By the southwest of Germany you can find the federal state of Baden-Württemberg and Stuttgart as the capital city. Even the name can be unknown it’s the second most touristic region in the country, full of fascinating spots.

For instance, Stuttgart is the main gateway to enter the mysterious Black Forest, the impressive Constance lake, the stunning mountain rage of Swabian Jura o little fairytale towns like Esslingen, Freiburg, Ludwigsburg, Baden-Baden o Heidelberg. Now it all sounds a bit more familiar, right?

Black Forest

This is an area well known for the cuckoo clocks, famous among German. The Black Forest has a long tradition of cuckoo clocks makers, since 1740. In the touristic town of Triberg you will fins the biggest cuckoo clock in the world, also the second on the list. At 12:00 by noon you can see the 4-meters cuckoo singing.

Another curiosity from Triberg is that is where the traditional recipe of the Black Forest cake, the most famous in German gastronomy, comes from. It’s made of layers of sponge cake, cream and cherry jam. You can find it at Café Schäfer, open since 1915.

If you’re into that, there is also Gengenbach, a fairytale town you can visit. Actually, here is where Tim Burton filmed Charlie & The Chocolate Factory. Not many changes were needed, as the cobbled streets, timbered and flowered balconies make Gengenbach a very charming town already.

Apparently, everything goes big in the little towns of the Black Forest. The windows at Gengenbach City Council (from 17th century) get open from Advent Sunday until Christmas, becoming the biggest Advent Calendar in the world.

To the west of the Black Forest, you will find the university town of Friburgo, considered the greener town in Germany and the one with more sun. Surrounded by nature, this is the perfect place to organize outdoor activities anytime during the year.

Following this series of stories, highlight that the Black Forest is primarily leading on rural tourism because of its large forest, green valleys and large lakes, like Glaswaldsee, Mummelsee, Kimbergsee, Feldsee or Titisee.

Constance Lake

But if we have to highlight something, probably the better known spot – as it’s the largest continental lake in Germany – is the Constance Lake, through the borders of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The immensity makes it impossible to look further than an horizon of crystalline water, as if it was an ocean. Here is the final point of the tourist route Architecture of Elegant, almost 3,000 kilometers long.

For the rich enviorment and the little towns surrounding it -Constanza, Lindau or Wasserburg– the Constance Lake is a valuable cultural and natural heritage.

The lake, almost 74 kilometers long, has 3 wonderful islands inside that you can visit. Mainau – which can be reached through a bridge, is a paradise full of flowers and plants, as it’s better known as the ‘Flowers Island’, and a wide variety of butterflies are here. The Lindau Island is known for the port with a lighthouse and the Bavarian Lion and, finally, the Reichenau island, connected to the mainland by a bridge, has a monastery and churches which are condisered Human Heritage by UNESCO.

Swabian Jura

Swabian Jura goes trough the Baden-Württemberg state. It’s a medium-height mountain range, because of the erosion suffered by the peaks along the years. Danube and other rivers created deep valleys and is also one of the areas in the planet with the largest number of volcanoes.

Along the range there are stunning castles and palaces but, among all of them, the great Hohenllorn castle must be highlighted, it’s located at the top of the mountain of the same name.

The interior houses treasures such as the Crown of William II, personal effects of Frederick II of Prussia or a letter from George Washington to Baron von Steuben.

It’s operative as a museum and one of the main attractions in the area; even it’s a reconstruction built in the 19th century, homage to the Hohenzollern dynasty.

Maineau by Stako | Freiburg by joergens | The biggest cuckoo clockr by MrSurrender | Constance Lake by Markus Bernet | Hohenllorn castle by Uvatter

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