Northeim 2023

Once upon a time, there was a girl who splurged on a fully lie-flat bed and two plane windows all to herself.

There is rosé Champagne, elegant and poised; cozy mugs of often-missed karak chai; and finely flavored food. There is a beautifully plush blanket to snuggle under, and cloud-like pillows, and the gentlest of wake-up taps.

Then there is the first-class bus, its deep red armchairs emblazoned with the oryx, that conveys us in suitable splendor to the opulent lounge for a layover so swift I barely had time to appreciate the amenities before it was time to board again. I fall into Diptyque-scented sleep inside the QSuite, which does come quite close to being an enchanted carriage.

The magic spell vanishes as I land rather abruptly to some confusion at the industrial Frankfurt Airport, and make my way into a bus (no legroom or butter-smooth seats on this one, alas) crammed with passengers grumbling about the construction we were skirting.

Despite the detours, I eventually locate the correct platform. I am early; the train is not.

It is half an hour late pulling into Frankfurt am Main. I peer anxiously out the window, and only by accident notice that the platform for the next train has changed. A breathless sprint, an awkward lurch, and I manage to squeeze into an aisle seat on Berlin-bound train number two.

The third and last ride of the day is in a deceptively cheery, cobalt-blue train with a splashy orange stripe. The journey is barely a quarter of an hour, but it feels like the longest 15 minutes of my life when the fractious conductor pauses to inspect my ticket, finds something utterly objectionable, and promptly starts shouting at me.

Willkommen in Deutschland, I guess.

The full-throated villain of the story had appeared, and she manages to convey, in strident tones that carry down the length of the carriage, that she would be getting off the train with me at the next stop. A trip that had begun so well with a sublime truffle tortellini at 35,000 feet was rapidly dissolving into a properly Grimm misadventure.

“You should just leave when the doors open,” advises the sympathetic passenger behind me. But I wasn’t about to attempt running away from an irate German in uniform.

The train clanks to a halt, the conductor prepares to march me into the nearest office, and in swoop both the knight in shining armor and my fairy godmother: the couple whose countryside wedding I’ve traveled halfway round the world to attend.

With the Deutsche Bahn guardian placated and the kerfuffle sorted, I am safely ushered through the smart blue and white doors of the hotel in town. The genial reception team has to rummage through their impressive collection of adaptors to lend me one, but the WiFi and hot showers work flawlessly, the breakfast room looks promising, and I’m assigned a room that keeps me as snug as a bug in a Hanseatic rug.

What would you like to eat, ask my solicitous hosts downstairs, when they collect me for dinner.

Curry wurst, I say immediately. Paired with chilled apfelschorle, it is a repast worthy of a plucky goose girl who has successfully evaded the clutches of a cunning bridge troll on her way to the castle.

Northeim unfolds itself from the pages of a book of nursery rhymes. Picturesque lanes run between half-timbered houses that lean against the clear azure sky. A comical gnomish nose looms from a pink-painted cottage on one street, while rose-red flowers tumble from forest-green planters along another. A crisp autumn breeze swirls through a farmers’ market, tossing handfuls of leaves over a mossy stone fountain. Just behind the hotel, the prosaically named Kirchstrasse leads to the Gothic stained-glass windows of St. Sixti-Kirche. The town smells of fall and approaching winter frost.

Like most good fairytales, this one ends with a wedding, held on a chilly afternoon out by the tree-lined lake. A curly-coated terrier amiably sniffs between rustling coats, and the heartfelt strains of an old love song, sung in the eloquent tongue of our faraway country, float through the air. A gilt arch clad in snow-white flowers curves above our beaming newlyweds.

And they lived happily ever after.