The Loreley

It was sung about and painted. Stories and poems tell of her myth. There are few places in the world that have such a strong charisma as the Loreley. Visitors from all over the world want to discover cultural history, trace the myth and experience a natural monument.

A visit to the Loreley Rock south of the town of St. Goarshausen is certainly one of the very special experiences for every Rhine tourist.

The 125m high slate rock (193.14m above sea level) is geologically approx. 4 million years old and has been the centre of Rhine romanticism since the 19th century. The Rhine here is only 175 m wide. The current is correspondingly strong here. An additional danger used to be the rocky reefs in the water, so that ships were exposed to great danger here. Many ships sank and many people lost their lives. The word Loreley comes from the words "Ley"=rock and "Loren"=listening. This was probably derived from the sound of the rapids and the buzzing of the multiple echoes in the narrow valley section.

The legend of the Loreley is probably known to everyone, less its origin. The female figure Loreley was brought to life in 1800 in Clemens Brentano's ballad "Zu Bacharach am Rheine". Here, as a beautiful sorceress, she drags all men to their doom and, on her way to exile, plunges from the rock into the Rhine. In 1824 Heinrich Heine published his "Loreley" poem, the content of which corresponds to today's legend. The Loreley is a beautiful female figure sitting on the top of the rock, combing her golden hair and casting a spell over the sailors and thus drawing them to their death. In 1838, Friedrich Silcher set the Heine poem to music and consolidated the world-famous legend with his Loreley song.