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Today we took a chance based on the program director’s description and did the optional tour to Rothenburg. It was yet another ‘oh it’s so amazing’ description of a town and the beautiful Romantic Road to get there so I had my doubts since so far the hype has outweighed the reality. Well. Problem number one. It’s cloudy and threatening rain. And as we’re driving along, it starts to rain reasonably hard. We’re Oregonians and prepared, but still. Warning flag number two. The Romantic Road is called that not because of its beautiful scenery or the romantic feeling it instills in you, but because it connects a number of key sites that were big during the Romantic Period. From the Prince-Bishop’s palace in Wurzburg to Neuschwanstein Castle near Munich. For the stretch of Romantic Road we followed, it looked like the Willamette Valley. Rolling farmland, with corn, wheat and sugar beets. The occasional quaint little village where the farmers lived. It was all quite pleasant actually but they had gotten us all jacked up about it. The road itself is famous. The view, not so much.
We arrived in Rothenburg and as we pulled up, the light rain became a downpour. It’s seriously raining. We donned all our rain gear, and headed out, dodging umbrellas. The first stop (and luckily it was covered) was the bathrooms. We had just spent an hour on the bus with a lot of old people, so that was a good call. But the bathrooms are relatively small so the process was taking forever.
The plan, as we had been told, was to get a guided tour of town until 11:45, then a ‘typical German lunch’ for another hour, then back on the busses at 2:30. Well after the previous couple of day’s experience, we knew we wouldn’t get to see much of the town with that plan. And bratwurst and sauerkraut are fine but not something we really needed to experience, and since the guide had been giving us a lot of information on the drive over, we decided to go full rogue and abandon the tour. We let the guide know and off we went. An excellent call.
So after some serious warning signs that this day could be a complete bust, things turned better quickly. The town is really beautiful. It puts Miltenberg to shame. It’s Las Vegas to Miltenberg’s Reno. First of all it’s bigger. There are plenty of the half-timber houses to see, but others as well. The town is surrounded by the original wall, with guard towers and gates. Lots of quaint streets and shops. And all the shops were open! Even though it’s Sunday (and unlike in Wurzburg where the non-optional tour people went). Because Rothenburg is a tourist town and tourists don’t care what day it is.
This is the town was where Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was filmed and if you remember that movie you’d feel right at home. It’s extremely quaint and picturesque. The first place we went was a small museum the guide had told us about that is a re-creation of the home of a medieval shoemaker. As the guide (Dorothea) said, we are on the ABC tour. (A)nother (B)eautiful (C)astle and (A)nother (B)eautiful (C)athedral. (Ain’t it the truth). So this was a chance to see how the rest of the population lived (the 99% as it were). Maybe not the truly downtrodden, after all, this man had a trade. But after touring the palaces and homes of the aristocrats and pillars of business, it was a nice change.
It was just a little house off a side street, run by a very nice older woman. Three stories. Very low ceilings and dark on the ground floor where the kitchen was, and the loom and the shoemaker’s workshop. This was the work area. And it’s too bad because it’s the darkest part of the house. The second floor though was quite bright and as old wooden houses from the Middle Ages go, not bad living conditions. There was a master bedroom and the kid’s room and a sort of family room. There were some really amazing linens too in a cabinet. Napkins tightly rolled and wrapped tightly by the table cloth. It made really interesting patterns. The third floor was kind of an attic/storeroom. Kind of dark and low ceilinged as well. But not as dark as the ground floor.
We chatted a bit with the proprietor. Her English was a little rusty but our German is non-existent so we can’t complain. She told us the family typically had 10-15 children (yikes). And a sign indicated they would likely have to sleep 3 to a bed (smaller than a twin bed). She explained about the cellar – the temperature is cool and remains so in summer and winter, so it was kind of a walk-in refrigerator. And she pointed out the well, which was in the middle of the ground floor and still apparently had water. She was very nice. I asked to take her picture and she said “oh, no, no”, putting her hand to her face. Very cute. But she offered to take one of us in front of the house which was very sweet of her, and it came out nice.
From there we wandered into the main shopping area. Marion was in heaven. It’s the Bavarian Carmel-by-the-Sea. There were lots of miniatures, which she loves. And cloth/fabric stores and art stores and garden stores, and Christmas stores with ornaments galore. She bought more there than in the previous days so far.
By now we were back on the main street. And it was getting to be lunch time. We missed lunch with the tour so we were on our own. We found a little café (da Vinci) that had salads and wieners so we went there. But then we discovered that they have a 6 or 8 page menu of different kinds of sundaes! Well now we’re talking! So after some pizza and dogs and a little salad (for appearances) we split a strawberry something or other that was huge and delicious. We plan to show the others what they missed eating their Bratwurst and apple strudel.
While we were finishing lunch we heard what we thought was thunder. But it kept repeating and in a sort of cadence. What it sounded like was cannon fire. And it turns out, that’s what it was! It was the opening day of some kind of summer festival and there was a parade. A pretty good sized one actually.
Marion had stepped into a ‘Christmas’ store when it started. So she got to spend all the time she wanted in there, and I watched and photographed the parade as it went by. It was various groups – marching bands, historical societies in various historic outfits, gardening clubs, the brewery, the falconry club, some folks carrying blunderbusses and all sorts of things. It was great with the bands playing marching music. And was like a history of Germany in costumes. It went on for 15 or 20 minutes. It had to be practically everyone in town.
We had just a little bit of time left. Marion wanted to continue her shopping frenzy, so I went off and found the bishop’s garden and its view of the Tauber River. A very nice spot. The view, so we were told, is ‘amazing’. Well, it’s not. I’m getting tired of being told about how beautiful things are when they are quite ordinary (or maybe I’m just jaded). But the garden itself was very pretty.
So now it was time to meet up with the group in the main square. The only problem was, Marion had the map. I had the general direction in my head, but I also was trying to find the ATM in town since the money supply was getting low (I didn’t realize how low since Marion was spending it as fast as she could while I was in the garden). I did manage to find the ATM, but in the process got turned around. So now I had about 10 minutes to find the main square before they’d leave me behind.
I headed off in the direction I thought it was, but came to the city walls. Wrong way. But the wall served as a good marker. The center of town was not near the wall. So I headed the other way, trying to veer towards where it looked like the stores were. But I hit the wall again and turned again. And I thought I was doing pretty well until I passed the ATM machine I’d just used. Doh!
I was just about to go into a shop and ask for directions when I heard music and figured a band would be in the main square. Good call. I was right. So we give a nod of thanks to the Missouri Music Ambassadors (or something like that) who are traveling Europe giving band concerts and happened to be in Rothenburg today. They were pretty good actually and we enjoyed them for a bit until it was time to go. And as it turned out, I was maybe 2 blocks from the square but it took me 10 minutes to find it.
The drive back to Wurzburg looked a lot like the drive over. More rolling fields of various things. And another one of those overheard conversations that makes us crazy. On the way over the guide had said they grow all the standard grains – oats, wheat, barley and rye on these farms. The woman behind us was saying that to her seat mate, but couldn’t remember barley. “It’s oats, wheat, rye and… something… I can’t remember… oats, wheat, rye… huh… what was that… oats…”. We’re not supposed to be eavesdropping but the urge to shout BARLEY! Jesus! was very strong.
One of the interesting aspects of the drive was there were quite a few wind turbines in the area, although the guide said they weren’t being that effective, or possibly not as effective as solar. There were a lot of homes with solar panels. Not quite the majority of homes but approaching it. Apparently this area of Germany gets the most sun. But you couldn’t tell that from today. Cloudy and rainy the whole time.
But back to Wurzburg and the Prince-Bishops Palace. This is an amazing building. The residence of the bishop, who clearly did not take the vow of poverty very seriously. Not. At. All. As the guide said, at the time, you couldn’t really distinguish yourself via wars or politics. So building a bigger palace is how you showed off. This guy was showing off big time.
It’s a very large place. A center section and two wings. 3 stories tall. 300+ rooms. You enter a grand entryway with a huge staircase and above it, the largest fresco painting in the world, depicting the ‘four’ continents (Europe, Asia, Africa and America). From there you enter the white hall. This is the initial waiting room and is meant to be impressive but the level of impressiveness rises as you get closer to the bishop. This room had really elaborate rococo ornamentation but the room was painted in muted whites and greys so you were impressed but not wowed. (But the rococo work was really something.)
You then moved to the next hall which had gold leaf and colored marble pillars and some elaborate paintings (which tended to feature the bishop). It was setup for a Mozart concert and it must be a great venue to hear music both for the elaborateness of the room and the acoustics given the high ceilings.
We moved through some more elaborate rooms (one or two, I can’t remember) with tapestries on the walls and fancy paintings and a few pieces of furniture. And then to the mirror cabinet. Which was the most amazing room of all. The guide said they call it the God room since everyone who walks into it says “oh my God”. And despite being told that, it’s exactly what I said too.
The room is covered in gold leaf mirrors. Mirrors painted with various animals or people or what not. It’s stunning. I haven’t seen the hall of mirrors at Versailles but I have to think it can’t be much better.
The tour was pretty quick though. 300+ rooms. We saw about 5 of them. But well worth it. There were gardens in the back and we once again abandoned the tour to go walk through them. Very pretty. From there it was a quick walk down the main street to the river. We didn’t find Wurzburg all that appealing and found out from the people who didn’t take the optional tour that it was pretty much a bust. Everything was closed (being Sunday). They got rained on too. And there wasn’t a whole lot to see other than the palace. So I’m very glad we did the optional one. In fact as I told Debby about how the shops were open she was beside herself. Then when I described the parade…. well, let’s just say they didn’t have as good a day as we did.
Oh and I should also mention, for you basketball fans out there. Wurzburg is where Dirk Nowitzki is from. We passed the gymnasium (high school) where he went to school.
By the time we got back Marion wasn’t up to being with people and decided to stay in the room. I arranged for the food folks to bring her something, which they did. I had dinner with the usual crowd but we picked up a couple of stragglers at the end of the table by me and they were very interesting folk. They sounded English but were Scottish. (Tony and Pat, not your typical Scottish names). He was some kind of big wig in the British military and as part of his duties during and/or after the war, he was assigned to visit Rudolf Hess at Spandau Prison every month and check on him! He said, at 85, he’s probably the last person alive who ever talked to him. Not a story you hear every day. And especially interesting, since we’ll be going to Nuremberg where he was tried and convicted. (Hess, not Tony)
I had a long chat with his wife as well. She wanted to understand how our governmental system got so gummed up and I explained to her how Congress works (or doesn’t). But we also chatted about her Springer Spaniels and our kitties and how she used to be a computer operator in the 60’s, where when you turned on the machine (which was the size of a house) you had to wait 30 minutes for it to warm up before doing anything, then feed the operating system in by punch tape! Pretty cool.
Tomorrow is shaping up to be another day where we’ll wish we had a few more hours to spend in town but we’ll see. In fairness to Viking, if you’re going to get there by boat, you have to leave some time to do it. But it’s been a bit frustrating to not be able to really explore some of these places we’ve been.
6/29/14
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