This is the story of a young student bear, some clever, sparkly gnomes, a rather large bag of magic fairy dust, and a somewhat disoriented Viking River Cruise tourist who loses her way in Radiant Regensburg!  (P. S. Dearly Beloved (D.B.), continues to tell a similar (but perhaps far more colourful version to all who will lend an ear!) Do beware though as it is a rather looong story!

Well here goes…..

Once upon a time, there was a, not so young, Aussie couple who had found themselves lucky enough to have saved all of their pennies over many years. With all of this saved up treasure they’d been able to purchase a most wonderful Viking River Cruise in exchange for their “Penny Gold”!

This magical river cruise was now taking them through some five countries (The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary) and up and down three main rivers (The Rhine, The Main and the Danube). It was a truly grand European Sojourn. They were travelling in the early Spring months, as the trees were unfurling their emerald-green leaves and many of Europe’s prettiest blossoms were again bursting into their rainbow of Spring colour.

Everything had been going so well, just as it always seems to, right at the very beginning of a really great Fairy Tale! The couple had been wined and dined, cocktailed and trivia quizzed, entertained and nurtured, pandered, mothered and totally spoilt. They were meeting lots of new friends from all around the world. There were lovely people from England, Wales, Scotland, and America, travelling with them. The couple even met some 22 or more new friends from their own land down under called Oz.

They had been sailing for nine days so far. Today they were going to visit Radiant Regensburg.

The sweet (but not so young) girl with her beloved Nikon D7000, heartily vowed to try to take some of the very best photos she could on this day.

After all, she really wanted to remember this interesting little city. It was also going to be the couples very last day in Germany for many more years to come. And added to this, the sweet, not so very young girl, knew that Radiant Regensberg was quite well known for its amazingly old architecture. She also happened to know it held a rich place in European history. How did she know all this you may well ask? Well she knew it because she’d spent quite some time in the mid-morning hours quietly surfing around Google on the wonderful internet of the 21^st century, just looking at many of the places they would soon be visiting.

After docking in Radiant Regensburg just after the sun had reached its highest point in the cloud filled sky that day, the happy couple quickly disembarked for their afternoon of sightseeing and info-walking. There were so many interesting things to look at….things that they simply didn’t have back in their own young country.

There were archeological diggings, stone-aged roman walls, a beautiful arched stone bridge dating back to the time of the crusades, a 900 year old sausage kitchen that smelled simply divine, and the most wonderfully ornate Gothic Dom.

Well the girl with her beloved Nikon D7000 got busy taking lots of joyful happy snaps. She was most careful to try to minimize the number of people in her shots so that they looked more like the professional ones she’d seen on the Internet and in the glossy travel magazines.

In fact, she would often hang back for considerable amounts of time just waiting until the others had taken their photos and moved on again. At the very least it often took her some time to get all of her manual settings just right on her beloved camera.

So she was often lagging behind all of the other sprightly sightseers in her tour group. On several occasions, her concerned and kindly husband had come back to get her. He tried to warn her that she needed to hurry along and keep up with the rest!

But then it happened…..

The sweet, not so young girl, with her beloved Nikon D7000 turned around from taking a particularly time consuming shot and found herself all alone in Radiant Regensburg……..a city that was actually  thousands and thousands of miles away from her home in the land of Oz.

“Crikey”,  she thought…Where’s everyone else gone now? (She may well have said far worse than this you know! Being polite company it shall not be repeated here!)

She rushed outside but there was no one to be seen. Not even her wonderful Dearly Beloved (D.B.) They’d all suddenly vanished into the ether of the atmosphere. A whole river boat full of nomadic sightseeing tourists had gone “poof”  and were now nowhere to be found!

She turned to look this way.

She turned to look that way.

Her gaze swept hurriedly up the street and down.

Ah….thankfully it wasn’t too long before she spotted a small  group of tourist’s a long way up the street in front of (what was now looking to her like the most beautiful) Viking info-walk tourist guide she had ever seen. And yes…the guide was holding one of those lovely round lolly-pop signs that she recognized so well. Oh thank goodness  she thought to herself, “THERE THEY ALL ARE”!

The sweet, not so young girl, rushed as fast as her little old legs could rush, as she raced along hastily to rejoin her group way up yonder on the horizon.

But something was still very wrong.

As she drew nearer the tour guide, she noticed that her audio head set was still not picking up this lovely Viking Tour guides radio signal as it should. Then suddenly it dawned on her…she realized there were no familiar faces in this group at all. No, not a one. Here she was in Radiant Regensburg such a long way from home and there was not one familiar face to be seen! Starting to panic now she knew deep inside that this was not her tour group after all.

She had to admit it.

She was lost.

She had no idea which way to go or where to start looking.

She was lost in this historic old German City of Radiant Regensburg and some thousands of miles away from her home in Oz.

But wait…..way up yonder at the other end of the street she could see some most impressive main-street looking buildings. Don’t panic she told herself resignedly. Panicking just won’t help at all.

Immediately she headed for the main street.

When she finally got there, she could see strangers everywhere. There were singles strangers, couples strangers and small groups of strangers. But sadly all appeared to be just that ….STRANGERS! Many appeared to be out and about enjoying a day’s shopping.

But there were no lovely familiar Viking Lolly Pop signs and there were absolutely no familiar Viking faces.

Adrenalin now pulsing through her body, she stooped to think…what to do?

“Ah”!  She now recalled hearing that her tour groups were going to meet back at the Dom when the clock struck three!

She quickly looked at her own watch. It was now just ten minutes away from three. If only  she could just find  the Dom she could hopefully get back there by three o’clock and meet up with her group and her wonderful D.B.  She now couldn’t wait to see his face again.

But where was the Dom? Which way to go? Surely the spires would have to be a dead giveaway. The sweet, not so young girl, scanned the horizon. But no, not a spire anywhere to be seen.

She stopped to ask a young student bear, “Excuse me kind sir, could you please tell me the way to the ornately beautiful Regensburg Dom?

“Ah but no I cannot”,  said the young bear sadly. “I’m from Munich and only here in Radiant Regensburg visiting for the day”.

“Oh no”,  thought the girl with a sinking heart.

Then she saw some pretty sparkly green and gold magic gnomes. “They look wise and very kindly,” she thought to herself.

She stopped to ask them, “Excuse me you pair, you look like a very wise and helpful pair of young gnomes, Could you please tell me the way to the beautiful Regensburg Dom?

“Ah but no we cannot”,  replied the sparkly gnomes. “We’re from Ireland and we’re only in Regensburg visiting for one day”.

The girl’s heart sank further.

“Oh but wait”, said one of the kindly gnomes….….we do have some magic gnome dust with us.”

With a wonderful woosh and a whirl, the sparkly gnomes threw their magic glitter dust high into the air. It billowed around in a little whirlywind.

All of a sudden the girl spied the very familiar faces of a lovely Welsh couple who were also travelling on her longship.

With heart racing quickly she ran up to them.

“Hello are you with the group from our river boat sightseeing tour today she asked.”

“Why no”, they said.

“We’ve decided to just do a little of our own sightseeing and shopping today. We didn’t take the tour as we’ve both been here a few times before,” they said.

Relief flooded through the sweet girl’s veins. Surely they must know their way around.

And so all ended well. This lovely Welsh couple were able to direct the poor lost, not so young girl, right back in the direction of the Dom where she was able to rejoin her group yet again.

Strangely her D.B. appeared rather angry with her when she returned. How could he be so angry when she was now so very, very happy she wondered?

Well it turned out that he’d mistakenly thought she’d been absconded by the Gypsy’s. He’d been searching and searching and couldn’t find her anywhere.

She wondered what he thought the Gypsy’s might want with a sweet, but not so young girl? She couldn’t work that one out. Not at all!

Ah but the tale has a very happy ending as all good fairy tales do and nothing could spoil the sweet, not so young girls, deliciously happy frame of mind now that she had found everyone once more.

Well the motto of this story is obvious I think:

Never take too long to take your travel photographs for fear you may find yourself all alone and a long lost way from home!

Did you know that this is most certainly not the only Radiant Regensburg Fairy Tale ever written. I’ve recently read  a news story that said there were some 500 lost Fairy Tales rediscovered in Regensburg just a couple of years ago. They’d evidently been hidden away for over 150 years. You can read all about them by clicking either of the two numbered links below. If you can read german, you can even buy a book containing many of these lost fairy tales from Amazon. For a small sample of these tales just click here: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/mar/05/turnip-princess-discovered-fairytale

1. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/mar/05/five-hundred-fairytales-discovered-germany

2. http://www.examiner.com/article/500-new-fairy-tales-discovered-germany

Oh and lastly, I  wanted to tell you all about another wonderful blogger in our blogosphere called Brenda who writes lots of lovely modern fairy tales for the whole family. Do go over and check out her blog as well. You can find out more about her at:   http://friendlyfairytales.com/about-2/

I love to read her stories…….I’m sure many of you will too. And for those of you who would like just one more Halloween Story you might like to go over to her blog and read about “Crankypot Halloween”. Click on this link here to read the tale: http://friendlyfairytales.com/adventurous-fairy-tales/crankypot-halloween/