We have heard from many people, mostly Americans, that Rothenburg ob der Tauber is a must see. We have also heard from just as many or more, mostly Germans, that it is a tourist trap! We decided shortly after arriving that we didn't care if it was a tourist trap, it is a beautiful city filled with all sorts of charm and character. It really was quite magical!
This shot is from our walk along the wall - looking back at
the main section of the city.
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| One of the pedestrian entrances to the city - there are only a few entrances through the 14th century wall. |
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| Walking the wall Saturday afternoon - Rothenburg is one of the few cities that has its wall intact. Only a small portion of the wall was destroyed towards the end of WWII. That portion was repaired though so you can walk the wall in its entirety - about a mile and a half or so. |
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| Rothenburg's City Center - the Rathaus, Town Hall |
After checking into our hotel, The Gasthof Butz, we ate our picnic dinner in one of our rooms while we waited for the Night Watchman Tour to start - well worth the wait! Our tour guide shared many fascinating stories from the medieval city and helped us to not romanticise the harsh realities of life in a walled city. The part the boys talked about often is the dumping of the chamber pots into the streets below each morning.
| He dressed the part! |
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| The blankets on the beds are folded into thirds; making beds is much easier in Germany than in the U.S. The boys want to take these kinds of blankets home - the blanket is covered with a washable case so there are no top sheets. A bed can be made in less than five seconds! |
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| After our picnic dinner, we walked around the city doing a bit of window shopping. Even in a tourist town, the shops still all closed by 6:00p.m. We were all getting a bit chilly so opted to stop at this restaurant for something warm to drink. |
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| This is how the hot chocolate was served! And good hot chocolate at that! The coffee was served on the same silver trays. |
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| Schneebälle (snowballs) are popular pastries in Rothenburg - this one was a cinnamon and sugar one. We also sampled one that was chocolate and one that was covered in powdered sugar. |
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| Grandma, Beth, Joj and Noah |
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| Noah and Grandpa, who is making his angry German expression |
We awoke Saturday to a light skiff of snow with it still coming down. It ended up snowing all day transforming Rothenburg into a picture perfect postcard. The following photos are shots from around the city.
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| This is what the front of our cabin is eventually going to look like! :) |
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| The grapes were ready to harvest. Above one door, I could tell someone had helped themselves to the harvest. |
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| ~ Tracy and Joj ~ All of Rothenburg looks like this street! |
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| I did not take this photograph, but I wanted to include it to give you a visual of the beauty of the outside of the church. |
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| The High Alter, painted by Friedrich Herlin - we couldn't see the inside of this but we did get to see the back side. The paintings were completed in 1466. They were just beautiful! |
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| This is one of the paintings on the back side of the High Alter - the fascinating thing about this painting is that no matter where you stand, Jesus' eyes appear to be looking right at you. |
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| The Holy Blood altarpiece - carved by Tilman Riemenschneider in the early 1500s - this section of the carving depicts The Last Supper |
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| ~ The Nave ~ This gives you a sense of the size of the church as that is the High Alter with the stained glass behind it. |
We decided to dine Saturday night at the restaurant in our hotel. Grandma and Joel ordered the same dish - spinach noodles stuffed with meat and egg - which ended up being every one's favorite dish. We enjoyed sampling each other's food for the duration of their visit!
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| This is the breakfast spread - I didn't get any photos from our dinner Saturday evening. |
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| All of the boys love that a breakfast spread includes individual Nutella packets - we emptied the place of Nutella, I'm sure. |
Sunday morning after breakfast we strolled around the city again, walked more of the wall and made a few purchases. We found one little shop where a little old lady sat whittling some of the smallest little characters we've ever seen. When we all walked into the shop, she stopped whittling and followed us around - I'm sure several smaller sets of hands made her nervous! Mom and I both purchased a few little angels, which the lady wrapped in tissue paper and placed in an empty matchbox for us. She allowed Joel to take a few photographs - the walls were four or more shelves per wall so there had to be literally thousands of figures in that little room.
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| I could have spent hours looking at all of the figurines. I could have spent even more time deciding which ones to purchase! So we limited ourselves and decided that we'd like to return here at some point to purchase a nativity - they were absolutely beautiful. |
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| The little angels in front are what Mom and I purchased. I'm going to use mine to start a new Christmas tradition with the boys. Each day while they are at school, I plan to hide our angel in a new place and see who finds her every afternoon. I chose one that is unpainted and playing a violin - she's adorable! And she's probably only an inch tall. |
Wanting to show Dad and Mom the Alps, we left Rothenburg and headed farther south to Lindau. It is a little town located right on the Bodensee or Lake Constance. This lake forms Germany's southern border with Austria and Switzerland. We have heard it's just beautiful from the German side because the Alps of Austria and Switzerland come right to the lake. However, it was snowing the ENTIRE time we were there. Hence, we couldn't see across to the other side of the lake let alone the Alps. What we did experience though was our first stay in a youth hostel. I'm glad my parents are flexible as it was an experience! It was like moving back into a college dormitory for the night.
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| ~ Grandpa and Joj ~ Because there wasn't much to see outside, we purchased ping pong paddles and balls and had a little tournament in the basement of the youth hostel. Thankfully, we had the basement almost to ourselves as we spent a fair amount of time being entertained here. |
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| ~ Joel and Micah ~ Those that weren't playing pulled up chairs to watch the event. |
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| Grandpa and Tracy duke it out. Grandpa still has some pretty good moves! The boys were quite impressed. Beth is too modest to tell you herself so I (Tracy) edited this part of the blog to let you know that Beth won the tournament. She is such a shark! |
Monday morning after breakfast at the hostel, we decided to hit the road - our trip was to be about five to six hours of driving. Long about 12:30, we started looking for a place to pull off for some lunch. Long about 1:30, we still hadn't found anything. We could have stopped at a McDonald's but it just didn't seem right to stop there when we can eat that any time we want in the States. So I started using the GPS to search for restaurants. We got off the Autobahn and drove through little villages following GPS directions - a pretty drive. Upon arriving at our destination, there was a sign posted that the place was closed for a day of rest. Normally, Sundays are when everything is shut down so we weren't expecting that. As we headed back toward the Autobahn, we stopped anyone we saw to ask for directions to a local bakery. This was yet another goose chase. Long about 2:30, we finally found a bakery that was open!
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| We ended up enjoying our little jaunt through the countryside, where we finally stopped in Euchdorf. |
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| After locating the bakery, we couldn't locate parking! It was becoming comical....it would have been even more so if everyone hadn't been so very hungry! |
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| Tracy ordered Grandma a dark beer! Doesn't quite go with pastries, but she sure did enjoy it. |
The next post will cover the last few days of Mom and Dad's visit....stay tuned!
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