Yet far from severing Victoria's ties with Coburg Albert's death only seemed to intensify her passion for this unassuming hideaway
Yet far from severing Victoria's ties with Coburg, Albert's death only seemed to intensify her passion for this unassuming hideaway.She came back only a few years into her 40-year widowhood, on what would have been his 46th birthday, to unveil a statue of her late husband in Coburg's handsome market square. In his hand, Albert's statue holds the plans for his crowning glory, the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851. For all its aristocratic heirlooms, Coburg still retains the quiet charm of a provincial market town, and it says a lot about Victoria's simple tastes that with so many more exotic and exclusive destinations to flee to, this relatively informal resort became her favourite foreign refuge. You can still visit the secluded rose garden where she spent so many hours of mourning. For the most powerful monarch on earth, it's a surprisingly modest sanctuary, and maybe for a fatherless only child who became queen quite by accident, that was precisely its appeal.
"Your Majesty, you cannot rule the Empire from Coburg," her Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, warned. But wandering alone between these tidy flowerbeds, you feel sure she would have, given half a chance. Victoria finally died in 1901, half a lifetime after her Albert, and only 13 years before her pan-European family plunged headlong into a ruinous world war. This incestuous bloodbath finished off most of her descendant monarchies. In 1918 her grandson, Carl Eduard, the last ruling Prince of Coburg, abdicated and Coburg became part of Bavaria, to the south, even though it had far closer ties with Thuringia, to the north It was an unlikely, yet lucky alliance. After the Second World War, Thuringia ended up in the Soviet zone (later East Germany), while Bavaria became part of the West.
Coburg lay within the American zone, but the Soviet Union gave up the town only after a bitter border dispute that lasted a fortnight. Coburg is the ideal west German base from which to explore the old East German hinterland, with relics such as Ummerstadt, an immaculately restored, half-timbered village just across the former border. Yet when that derelict frontier is just a distant folk memory, Coburg will still remember Victoria, whose image is even preserved in the local doll museum and teddy-bear factory. "As family, we want to show Victoria here in the town, where she was very happy with her Albert," explains His Highness Andreas, Prince of Saxe- Coburg-Gotha.
He is Victoria's great-great-grandson, a cousin of our own Queen, and the aristocrat behind the Callenberg exhibition. "She loved Coburg." A century after her death, Coburg still loves her back.William Cook travelled as a guest of Lufthansa and the Romantik Hotel Goldene Traube. The closest airport to Coburg is N?erg, served from Britain by Eurowings/Lufthansa (08457 737 747, www.lufthansa ) from London City and Stansted Fares start at £99. A rail ticket from N?erg to Coburg and back costs £21.40 through Deutsche Bahn (0870 243 5363).To Hahn, which is 90 minutes from Frankfurt rail station by bus, Ryanair (08701 569 569, www.ryanair ) flies from Stansted and Prestwick; a ticket to Coburg from Frankfurt is £59.40, but using the "Weekend" ticket or the "Guten Abend" ticket you can reduce the cost.Rooms at the Romantik Hotel Goldene Traube (0049 9561 8760, www goldenetraube ) cost £50 single, £68 double. For other options, contact the German National Tourist Office on 020-7317 0908, or see www.coburg-tourist.de).