Go to Hell... they have great beer!

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Okay, so it's been a while since I wrote... we now continue with our regularly scheduled program. At least one more day's worth.

We continue our journey in Oberwesel... today we took a boat cruise on the Koln-Dusseldofer line up the Rhine River to take a look at more castles. Unfortunately, the day was pretty dreary and the castles were shrouded in haze. The trip was still nice... the boat was very elegant on the inside, and had a restaurant and bar on board. We didn't have enough time to travel very far, so we just went up a few stops and then came back.

Then we headed to Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Bavaria, Germany's best preserved walled city... it dates back to the 9th century. The city flourished until the 1600s when the Thirty Years War took its toll. Rothenburg took a leading position among the Protestant powers, and was attacked three times by the Catholics, leaving it devastated, never to recover the importance it once had. It is for this reason that no new buildings were ever built, no streets were widened, no walls were knocked down to allow the city to expand. For 150 years it was untouched, and this is why it remains the best preserved medieval walled city. They have, of course, restored many of the buildings... as things that are old tend to fall into disrepair.

It is said that the suvival of the town in the face of the Catholic invasion is due to a man named Burgermeister Nusch. General Tilly of the Catholic forces had vowed to kill every member of the town council and destroy the entire town. On a lark, Tilly said that if one of the councillors could drink an entire tankard of wine in one sitting, he would spare the town. Mayor Burgermeister Nusch took the challenge and drank all 7 pints down without letting the tankard leave his lips. And while our hero spent the next three days sleeping it off, the town of Rothenburg was saved. Known as "der Meistertrunk" (the long drink), this history is re-enacted every hour on the hour in the town square, when little wooden men, one with a sword and one with a stein, emerge from shuttered windows... and history is played out once again.

In 1945, disaster struck the town again. With the Nazis using it as a hiding place, 16 Allied planes dropped their bombs on the picturesque city, killing 36 people and destroying hundreds of buildings and 2000 feet of the outside wall. American Deputy Secretary of State General John McCloy knew of Rothenburg's historical significance, and spared the town from further bombing as long as the citizens agreed it would no longer be used as a base for the Nazi resistance. General John McCloy was awarded the "Honorable Protectorate of Rothenburg" in November, 1948.

We stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast called Hotel Hornburg. It was a small world, as one of the other guests there was originally from Colorado Springs, and also had lived in St. Louis where my sister is lives. Marten was our host... he loved to talk and make jokes with us. He drew little faces on our soft-boiled eggs every morning. They had an old dog named Ole who greeted you when you walked in by lying next to the reception desk and mayyyybe opening one eye. After petting her everytime I walked by for two days, I became worthy of her slowly rolling onto her side and allowing me to rub her belly.

That evening, we gathered in the Marktplatz for the Nightwatchman's Tour. As we stood there waiting, I looked up at one of the buildings in the square and saw the Nightwatchman himself leaning out the window, wearing his black hat and cloak, drinking a glass of wine while he watched his subjects gather. The tour was hilarious, historical anecdotes about the job of the nightwatchman, protecting the town, and how the townspeople lived. I marveled at how the Nightwatchman was able to laugh at his own jokes after delivering them every night for 17 years. Maybe the wine helped...

At the end of the tour, he stopped in front of a tavern named Zur Holl ("to hell") and with his parting line, sealed our fate for the rest of the evening... "So when people tell you to go to hell... it's a good recommendation..." We all trooped in and though the place was packed, we managed to get a table that we ended up sharing with a really great couple from Broomfield, Colorado. The Nightwatchman eventually joined us, and we had a great time talking with him and drinking beer until he had to leave for his German-speaking tour at 9:30.

April 23, 2008

The next morning, Angie left to go find a phone card, and Mom and I took to the streets by ourselves. This is when I discovered that I must look German, because twice in one day, I had random people come up to me and start talking to me in German. The first was a gentleman who was trying to deliver something and couldn't find the store (or so I gathered). I reached back to the only thing I could remember from my high school German class, and said "Uhhhhh... no sprechen sie Deutch." Which I think translates loosely to telling him that he doesn't speak German. He cocked his head and looked confused, and then smiled and said "Ahh, okay..." and wandered off. Then later, Mom and I were sitting on the steps of a building in the Marktplatz, and a woman came up to me and started babbling at me in German. I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders trying to tell her that I didn't understand, but she didn't seem to mind, and she kept pantomiming things and talking... at first I thought she wanted to know what time it was, but that wasn't it. Then I thought she wanted to know if the steps were comfortable... I'm pretty sure that wasn't it either, but I just nodded and smiled, and eventually she seemed satisfied and walked away.

We had some great meals on this part of our trip. We stopped for lunch at a place called Italia, where I had the best meal of the entire vacation... Tagliatelle Gorgonzola... green and white pasta with a gorgonzola cheese sauce. For dinner one night, we went to a restaurant that specialized in potatoes... I had potato pizza with bacon, onion and salami which was great, but my sister had a potato cream soup with garlic and chives that was just to die for.

Rothenburg is a shopping haven... I wish I had a whole week there just so I could go in every shop. My main mission was finding a beer stein... which are everywhere... yet I was being picky, so I popped my head in shop after shop until I found what I wanted. We also happened upon the Nightwatchman's store... he had plugged it a couple of times during his tour, and when he sat with us at the tavern, he had mentioned that he spends his 8 week vacation in Thailand, and that's where he gets stuff for his store. It took me a while to put two and two together... I assumed his store would be full of knights in shining armor and swords and stuff, and I'm thinking "They make knights in shining armor in Thailand??" Then we found ourselves in a store that was full of the most beautiful beaded and bangled handbags, jewelry, clothing... even belly dance costumes. My mom said, "Hey, look, there's a painting of the Nightwatchman on the wall... I wonder if this is his store!" Ahhhhh-haaaaa.... yes, it takes me a while to catch on. I wanted to buy everything in that store... but as I had already spent too much money on other things, alas, I bought nothing. Sorry, Nightwatchman... maybe next time...

* Don't forget to click "Next" to see the rest of the pictures...

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Photos

Flat Trees?
We saw a lot of this in Bavaria and Austria... people would prune their trees flat against the building. I guess it makes sense, as there isn't a whole lot of room for a giant tree when the buildings are right next to the road.