Day 7 - Rothenburg, Germany

Had breakfast at the hotel and left by 8:30. Headed for Rothenburg. Drove past Frankfurt and Weisbadden. .




One thing I have noticed about Germany is that people are chubbier than other places I’ve seen in Europe, especially the women.

Arrived in Rothenburg and checked into the Hotel Gerberhaus. It was a really fabulous hotel. Hardwood floors, light pine furniture, four poster bed, comfy down comforters and pillows, and a nice modern bathroom. We all checked in and then scoped out each others’ rooms. Everyone’s rooms were very nice. The whole hotel was decorated nicely. We walked around the town and ended up eating a picnic lunch with a bunch of the group members in the Castle Garden. They had bought breads, cheeses, meats, strawberries, pastries, etc… Then, we went on the Rick Steves Get Away from Tourists walk with three of the other group members. We walked around the castle wall, climbed a tower (which cost 1.5 euro when you got to the top), and then toured the St. Jakob church, which has a huge, very detailed wooden alter carving. From there, we walked into a few stores, then got a snack - Gary got a pretzel and I got the world’s greatest apple streudel. That streudel was just indescribably delicious. I had already wolfed down ¾ of it before I even realized it and was only planning to eat half! I took a picture of it before biting into it because I knew it was going to be something special! J By now it was 5:00 and we were to meet for dinner at 6:00, so we went back to the hotel to freshen up. This consisted of passing out on the bed from 5:00 to 5:50! I didn’t move a muscle that whole time.



We went to dinner at Hotel Klosterstuble. We had ordered our food ahead of time based on a description of choices that Jennifer had been given. We could choose Weiner schnitzel with fries, salmon with potato salad or apaitzle, a noodle/pasta dish . I chose the weiner schnitzel because I didn’t want potato salad. I would have rather had the salmon. The dinners came out and the salmon looked fabulous and had boiled potatoes with it and then came the weiner shnitzel, which was sort of like a breaded pork chop and of course, it had potato salad with it!! It was ok, but I wished I had gotten the salmon. At least weiner schnitzel and potato salad was a more German type meal!

After dinner, we walked up to the town square where we were to meet “The Night Watchman.” This is a guy that dresses as a medieval times night watchman and gives a tour of the city, giving an entertaining lesson on the history of Rothenburg. The night watchman’s main job was to be on the lookout for fire while the people slept because that was the biggest danger in those times. He also told of how during WWII, the Americans bombed Rothenburg, but it was foggy and they missed the main part of the city. (Jennifer, our guide, had said earlier in the day that her dad was one of the ones bombing Rothenburg.) Also, at the end of the war, there were some Nazis in Rothenburg, so the US had given the army the order to destroy Rothenburg. Supposedly, the officer in charge of carrying this out had grown up with a picture of Rothenburg on the wall at his home in New York because his mother had gone there on vacations before, so he wanted to try to save the city. He requested and got authorization not to destroy the city if they would surrender, so they did and the city was not destroyed.



Jennifer was talking with the night watchman after the walking tour and they were talking about the Rick Steves tours and the watchman said that he heard that 40% of Rick’s tours were cancelled this year due to the economy. Glad our tour didn’t have to be cancelled!



We walked back to the hotel and it was about 9:30 at this point. I was beat. We were just getting ready for bed, when Gary announced that he couldn’t find his day pack. He hadn’t taken it to dinner and on the walking tour and it didn’t seem to be anywhere in the room. It had his passport and other things in there. We were just getting ourselves ready to head back out and look for it at the last place I remember it being - on the ground in front of the bench where we were eating our pretzel and streudel, when Gary found it in the window sill! He had laid it there and I had pulled the curtains closed, not even paying attention that the bag was there! So, crisis averted! Yay! No lost pack!