Sankt Goarshausen

The Loreley is a rock that became a song. The slate cliff rears 132 metres above the Rhine's narrowest and deepest passage, where reefs and racing current sank enough boatmen to demand an explanation; Clemens Brentano invented one in 1801 — a bewitching maiden — and Heinrich Heine perfected it in 1824 with "Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten", the poem of the golden-haired siren combing her hair above the fatal water. Set to Friedrich Silcher's melody, it became one of the most sung German songs in the world: a folk song with named authors, and the Rhine's signature tune.

The site honours the myth with due theatre. The plateau above the cliff — reached from Sankt Goarshausen, in whose bounds the rock lies — holds the Loreley open-air stage, built in the 1930s amphitheatre fashion and since then a storied venue for everything from opera and orchestral nights to legendary rock concerts, the river and the vineyards as backdrop. A landscaped summit park, the visitor centre and the statue of the maiden on the mole below complete the ensemble, while the viewing points give the definitive image of the UNESCO Upper Middle Rhine Valley: castles on every height, barges threading the bend where the echo once answered seven times.

Archive note: Loreley is a venue and locality, not a municipality — events here belong administratively to Sankt Goarshausen; flag accordingly in the workbook.