On Tuesday morning, we took a six am train, changed trains three times and arrived in Rothenburg ob der Tauber at about eight forty-five in the morning (I'd like to note here that Brittany plans all train-travel for the two of us).
The town center of Rothenburg was about as quaintly and picturesquely European and Bavarian as I've seen yet. The cobblestone streets were crooked and some led up and others led down, houses were every pastel color of the rainbow with complementary shutters on every window, and wrought-iron signs were in front of every store.
To temper such idyllic charm, our first stop was the Mittelalterliches Kriminalmuseum (Medieval Crime Museum), full of pillory cages, stocks (see Brittany and I testing out the stocks in the above picture), and myriad more unmentionable objects. Actually, the entire museum made my skin crawl and as we walked away an hour later, I wondered why on earth I'd wanted to go in the first place... I spent 4€ so that I could have the heebie-jeebies for the rest of the day. Yay!
We partook of the famous Rothenburg treat: schneeballen. It means "snowballs" and they are made from strips of dough balled together and fried, then topped with anything from powdered sugar and dark chocolate to marzipan. This is my sub-par picture of schneeballen:
Brittany had checked out a Lonely Planet guidebook on Bavaria for me, which included Rothenburg, so I was toting it around with me. A restaurant that sounded particularly good was not shown on the guidebook map, but we thought we'd try to find it anyway. We walked almost out of town, turned back, and asked directions from an innkeeper. He warned us that the place was located on the banks of the Tauber, which meant not just a hike down to the river, but a hike back up. Still we persevered. Unter den Linden was way, way off the beaten path, but we did escape the tourists that were beginning to crowd the stadtmitte, and the service was great. We even taught the women working behind the counter, one of whom was the cook, the English word for chives. I'd asked about something on the menu, and she brought out chives (which was the answer to my question) and asked us what they were called. She even had me write the word down, and left it on the cash register. As Brittany and I walked to a table, we could hear them repeating it: "Chives. Chives. Chives."
After lunch, and the steep walk back to the city center, Brittany showed me a famous Rothenburg destination: Kathe Wohlfahrt Weihnachtsdorf. A gigantic explosion of Christmas ornaments, decorations, and paraphernalia. It was Buddy the Elf's greatest fantasy. It was also one of those stores designed like a maze, winding back and forth so that everyone has to go through the entire store in order to get out.
After coming out into the sun again, and being mildly surprised that it was indeed August and not December, we walked the town wall. Rothenburg center is surrounded by a 3.5-km-long wall, complete with arrow slits. I'm no good at estimating distances, but I'd peg the height of the wall at about thirty feet.
This week Brittany also took me to a castle in nearby Leuchtenberg, and last night we went to a volksfest ("carnival") in Weiden. Posts and pics to come!
I leave for Denmark on Thursday. I finally received my address in Esbjerg, so now I have a place to sleep once I'm there. And then school starts on September first! Blech! I know it was my decision to go back to school, but it's school. I'm hoping that because this is graduate school, and because I am part of a focused program, then I will enjoy all my classes. If you work at what you love, it's not work, right?
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