Once upon a time, a lovely princess pricked her finger on a hexed spindle, and along with the rest of the royal household fell into a deep repose. Reawakened 100 years later by the kiss of a gallant prince, the maid known as Sleeping Beauty married her rescuer, and you know the rest. Every Sunday, in fact, to the delight of the children who gather at her feet, her majesty still holds court in the ivy-covered yard of Sababurg castle, north of Kassel, Germany. According to local belief, this has always been the home of Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm's slumbering royal. And with apologies to Disney, it's where knowing families go today to find the princess. Round-eyed Jan Schröder, 6, sure seems impressed. "It's sooo great," he says, "to meet Sleeping Beauty in person!"

The 14th century Sababurg, situated on a hill in the dark oak forest of Reinhardswald, is one of 62 magical stops on the 600-km German Fairy-Tale Route, where travelers follow in the footsteps of the brothers Grimm, the German siblings who became famous for their classic collection of folk songs and fairy tales. The route meanders through the countryside from Hanau, 20 km east of Frankfurt, where the brothers were born in the 1780s, to the city of Bremen, some 60 km from the North Sea, the site of a delightful bronze statue—a rooster perched on a cat standing on a dog balancing on a donkey—which celebrates the animal heroes of the Grimms' tale of the Bremen Town Musicians.The Route takes you to castles, towns and forests where the fairy tales, sagas and legends collected by the Grimms may have taken place. Along the way, theater productions, puppet shows and storytellers bring the magic alive.

Even in an era of squeaky-clean witches, the old Märchen sites, like the stories themselves, have lost none of their appeal. "These are such wonderful places," says Tatsuko Hirosawa, 65, from Yokohama, Japan. She's gazing at the rolling meadows covered with yellow rape blossoms and the many leafy copses that dot the countryside . "I used to read the Grimm tales when I was young—they are so romantic," she says. The kids, for whom the castle is a dream come true, agree: "Fairy tales," says Jan, "are, like, so cool." As long as people feel this way, the brothers' fantastic stories will live happily ever after. — Ursula Sautter