Sleeping Beauty's Castle

Sleeping Beauty's Castle | June 20, 2020

Sleeping Beauty is a famous fairytale about a young Princess Aurora who is cursed by an Evil Fairy named Maleficent. The Good Fairies guard over Sleeping Beauty as she grows into a young women until her 16th birthday when Maleficient's curse goes into effect putting Princess Aurora in a deep sleep. Of course only a young handsome Prince Phillip awakes the young princess by giving her a kiss, as the story goes.

In Germany, there is 2 Sleeping Beauty Castles. The first one is the one we visited. It is proclaimed by the Brother's Grimm as the original Sleeping Beauty Castle. The other one is in Germany as well called Neuschwanstein, Germany's most famous Castle. Neuschwanstein also gets confused with Cinderella's Castle, nevertheless it is the Disney Logo.

Near our hotel in Trendelburg is the village of Sababurg. The parking lot was empty with the exception of a few cars. I was a little giddy thinking that we would have the castle all to ourselves. But that wasn't the case. The castle was closed, we couldn't go inside which was weird because there was no mention of it on their website or the sign posted near the entrance, even a food truck on the castle grounds was ready to open. Immediately I thought they were just opening, but it was near noon on a Saturday. One would think this would be peak hours. We were however, able to walk around the perimeter of the castle.

Like so many castles in Germany, this castle was perched up on a hill so you can oversee the forest. There was this one area with a row of trees which paralleled each other. We thought this might be where the prince rode his horse to his maiden. That was probably not the case, but we could dream. The castle is in ruins. According to the Fairy tale website:

"Sleeping Beauty castle Sababurg was founded in 1334 as "Zappenborgk" by the Archbishop of Mainz for the protection of pilgrims to the nearby pilgrimage town of Gottsbüren and from 1490 developed into a splendid hunting lodge by the Landgrave of Hessen"

A 14th century castle has a hard time lasting over the years. In addition, no research of mine came up of Sleeping Beauty ever residing at the castle or even visiting the castle. The castle was made to protect pilgrims and later was a hunting lodge. Today is supposed to be a hotel and resort for guest.

What I've come to find out is that whatever inspired The Brother's Grimm became the landmark of their stories.