GERMANY

Darmstadt. Festival at Castle Frankenstein Five hundred years ago, Conrad von Frankenstein, the owner of the castle, sold his soul to the devil in exchange for a seret of immortality. Soon the body of the natural scientist was found in the laboratory (which he had set up in one of the towers) among the dismembered corpses that von Frankenstein dug up at night in the cemetery (for details, see Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein, the New Prometheus,” adjusted for experiments with electricity that were impossible in the 16th century). For the past twenty-five years, a multi-day Halloween party has been held in the ruins of the castle - on top of a high cliff, as it should be - and in the surrounding forests. The number of vampires, serial killers, zombies, werewolves, walking mummies, hanged men and succubi from the nearby US military base runs into the thousands. Beer flows, again. Stock up on aspen stakes and never go down at night into the underground passage that runs from the castle to the river.

October 24 – November 8