Germany – Ziegenhain (en)

Ziegenhain is a municipality located near the border with the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and on the bank of the River Sieg. It is famous for its half-timbered houses and for being the town of the Brothers Grimm’s Little Red Riding Hood.

Where to stay

We stayed at my friend Cato’s house who lives here. But there is a free motorhome area (Whonmobil-Parkplatz) without services in the town where you can park and spend the night, near the Lidl supermarket.

What to see

We toured the town, which is quite small and in 15 minutes you have seen everything. Highlight the house “Zum Rosengarten” built around 1620. Particularly striking in this four-storey half-timbered building are the two projecting three-storey windows in the corners with a hipped roof. The building has been used as an inn since 1876. Another house of note is the beautiful half-timbered house in front of the current Landgraf hotel, built around 1800 as a second rectory. The city church was built between 1665 and 1667 as a garrison and tomb for governors and fortress commanders. The “Stone House”, which was the seat of the Burgmanns since 1363, and where the Schwalm Museum has been based since 1938 houses a collection of crafts, traditional costumes and much more that is worth seeing.

The Ziegenhain fair where you can see the typical costumes of the area. By tradition, the dress is red for teenagers, when they reach the age of being able to marry the dress is green, for married women it is purple and for widows it is black. The typical costume for the harvest is white for summer.

The Singliser See Lake, which is halfway between Ziegenhain and Kassel. We went with Cato and his friend Angela, where you can enjoy the views and swim. The parking lot has an area for motorhomes, without services, which costs 12 euros per day.

In the evenings we enjoyed barbecuing at Cato’s fireplace in her garden.

Our next excursion was to the water games in Kassel on Wilhelm Mountain one of the biggest attractions in the city and since 2013, it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which you can see in the next blog!