Hello my beautiful readers,

Kassel – a town that seems inconspicuous but yet has left quite an impression and has a lot to tell. Get to know the so called “documenta town” here.

Three years ago my parents-in-law gifted my husband with a holiday-voucher. “The Germans and their vacation…”, you do not have this saying for no reason. But I rather take this up in my conclusion. What my parents-in-law did not know back then? What everyone did not know back then? Covid, difficult family affairs, which kept us from letting our then two-year-old son with my parents (especially with what came later on) and a second child on the way (you know her as the pretty curly-head meanwhile). Bad circumstances for a romantic holiday with just the two of us. But what should we have done now? If you click here you will not only see all the details about this voucher but also that it was quite pricy. And so between “vouchers actually can never expire” and “vouchers are only valid for three years” as well as “we do not want to waste the voucher” and “come on, we did not pay for it anyway” in the end we found a solution whereas the way has had it’s obstacles.

First I had to contact the organizer and ask if it would be possible to take our children with us explaining the circumstances. Well it was not up to them to decide but up the hotel we would choose. So we first agreed on a city and a hotel because as I hinted you cannot just travel and stay anywhere and expect the voucher to be valid there. Then we realized that we actually cannot take a big holiday and that it would be cheapest to drive by car. So we needed to find a city that would be maximum three hours away. And as if all of this was not enough the timing had to fit (and, no, if I was going have a concert the day after we would be back and my sister-in-law expect her first child the same day the timing was everything but good). Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the real life. Because a mother’s instinct does not betray her when her kindergarten-child has a red nose from constantly cleaning it just to end up with fever in the evening asking for medicine. In the end we agreed on having a trip to Kassel.

Kassel: First Impressions

I do not know what about you but I do consider traveling quite an act and therefore seek to travel with purpose or at least have an added value in my travels. So I rose the question what Kassel is actually about (you know, even along the Mosel-river we have made trips to smaller and bigger places always finding it worthy) but if you do not have a native guide what then? I hate to Google a city ahead of traveling there. It kind of takes all the excitement to discover it on your own. Well, if your circumstances are high your choice is low. Kassel sounds big, after all the Kassler-eat also comes from there. As we entered the city by car the term “documentastadt Kassel” [Engl.: documenta city Kassel] caught my eye, what did that mean?

The hotel in Kassel was impressive from the outside but as we entered it was rather unspectacular: An old building which is a listed building and transformed into a hotel right within the heart of the city could not be much modernized or include what is mean while a standard-equipment in average hotels (especially when you are traveling with children): Playing area, gym and wellness and even the breakfast buffet was kind of modest. I would not call the hotel itself entertaining in any way for younger guests but rather a means to an end with a kind staff. We exchanged the romantic dinner to pay the price for our children instead. Luckily that was included in the offer. But since our son turned sick we could not have gone swimming anyway (and also as I had found out by the end of our trip also I caught some kind of sickness which made the trip less pleasant).

“documenta” also written small in this very own way, is the most meaningful exhibition about art in Kassel. This art is visible throughout the whole city. But our first destination led us elsewhere: We went along the Fulda-river came across the Fulda-bridge [Ger.: Fuldabrücke]. Right close by there was a little festival in the “Kulturzelt Kassel” [Engl.: Culture-tent] which lasted from June 22 to July 20 but again we did not approach it further with children. Shortly before reaching the castle of Kassel (quite a funny wording) which they turned into a café partly and where we shot my “Style of the Season” which you can view here we reached the “Hiroshima bank”. Basically you had quite some aesthetics during your walk with a beautiful destination you get rewarded with. Statues of Greek gods as well as the state park. Peeking further passed the statues you could already spot the planetarium but as we had all been already quite tired and beaten we left it to the spot and closed the round walking back in the other side. On our way back we also spotted the “documenta”-exhibition-hall as well as the museum of natural history and the state-theatre with the statue of a dinosaur that our children loved.

We still entered the city center on the other side of that main-street but only to have a dinner at Peter Pane. Our first impression was that this city was beautiful as well as artful and historical. Good condition to end the day lazily in the hotel room.

Kassel: What Comes with Rain and Shadows

On our second and pretty much last day we wanted to discover the other side of Kassel:

• the market hall
• the St. Martin’s church
• the shopping-mall
• as well as the town hall (of course).

The term “other side” fits quite well just like the rain and shadows mentioned in the headline: While we were spoiled on the day of our arrival the weather was a mix of rain and sunshine the days following (even if it was not quite cold). We first spoiled the kids with a stay on the playground so that we could continue our town-discovery trip to the St. Martin’s church (my husband loves churches anyway so these are always hot spots for us during city-trips).

After a midday-relax back in the hotel we prepared for a dinner as well as discovering the rest of the town on the second half of the day starting with the market hall. That one sadly also was no comparison to the market hall in Rotterdam which you can read about here. It was half empty and dull, which was why we left again quickly. From the main shopping street we continued walking towards the town hall. That one was definitely more enjoyable with the crowd and the beautiful architecture – definitely worth a sight. The townhall is really hidden which is quite funny considering the fact that it was huge. It was located at the end of the shopping-street and since there was no actual townhall square but two opposite straight streets it was difficult to actually take a good photo of the complete townhall. I suggest you to use the panorama-function.

We found out that Kassel is also famous for the “Grimm”-brothers . Crossing the street passed the townhall there is a tiny parc with a monument from them. And then somehow the nicely seeming trip seemed to have found its end: I am a real kind of “Asian-tourist” when it comes to city-trips taking many photos. But that fun ended when my husband told me that there was some weird man who apparently mocked me and strangely followed us. Which is why I also did not take a photo of the movie-palace in Kassel which is a huge and cool futuristic building in silver but my husband was not feeling fine any longer of me crossing the street alone just for a photo and I understood that. And basically this is that hidden shadow side of Kassel: after a certain time but also at the edge of the main gatherings there are quite many gatherings of people you just do not want to pass by. Luckily we could quickly forget about this unpleasant incident celebrating our last evening there with a Tajine in a Maroccan restaurant.

Kassel or the Holiday-Voucher

I always wondered who would actually gift me with a holiday (even if in this case it was indirectly). Without wanting to sound ungrateful, now that we got it I would have thankfully rather gone without such a gift. I kept on telling my husband during the process of booking and organizing that this voucher rather turned out to be burden rather than a blessing. But we keep on agreeing that probably our parents were not aware themselves about all these conditions. The perfect trip using this voucher would have been during our seventh wedding anniversary two weeks later and at the seaside (not that we did not make it up that way but anyway). As much as it feels good to travel abroad and leave everyday life behind and actually have time. This trip rather felt like a nasty necessity. Probably such a gift would have been nice for a couple without children but we did already have a child and you could not have expected us to just leave our son somewhere. If you gift someone with something like this I would expect or suggest you also think of a solution because mentality is different with and without children.

As for Kassel we extended our horizon and that of our kids. Travelling there we found out that it is a meaningful city regarding art which could be recognized in the buildings. But whether I would recommend someone to intentionally travel there? Perhaps only if you are close by or pass by. For us it was more than enough to having been there once.

Love, Johanna