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Published: October 8th 2013
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Romantic Road
Rich agriculture! Early start for getting an 8:00 bus along the Romantic road to medieval Rothenburg. Again we disembarked at another port (an industrial dock nick-named “Stinky Port”). Skirting Würzburg, we drove through lots of small, neat towns and fields, eventually turning onto the Romantic Road – part of the 400 km total. Vistas of fields and trees unrolled along the gently curving road.
In Rothenburg, we parked with many other tour buses just outside the old city walls. Eric was our guide again, so we heard lots more anecdotal history.
This time about 60%!o(MISSING)f the city was saved from artillery barrages by an American officer who was aware of its history and a German officer who offered to and did retreat without firing. (40%!w(MISSING)as bombed the day before.)
Walking along the cobbled road to the market square gave us a good feel for medieval times. With tourism the only industry, shop owners have restored their places beautifully. Most of them have highly decorative signs jutting above our heads, and all the windows enticed us in. During our tour, Eric pointed out the meaning of fairly small figures carved into the stones above the doors, each of which indicated the
Baumeisterhaus Restaurant
The medieval-style sign that drew us to the restaurant. business type in pre-literate times.
The large market square was dominated by the City Hall – a huge sandstone building. (Behind it was a white plaster renaissance City Hall; the original building burnt in a fire.) To one side was a carved fountain, 5000 feet deep according to Eric. There were a number of vendors of what looked like souvenirs under tented canopies. We never explored these. Instead, the four of us retired for a coffee and “Schneebolten”.
“Snowballs” consist of rich flat dough strips twisted into a ball about the size of a baseball. I had the original powdered sugar (which drifted over every surface), and Deirdre had one covered in milk chocolate. Ian had a beer and a banana split. We sat outside on the sidewalk, but when visiting the toilet, we were able to see the lovely wall paintings inside the café/restaurant . Farther into the interior was a glassed-over courtyard with charming balconies. All of this was dated 1596.
Refreshed, Ian climbed the church tower to video views. (It closed before he
Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas Shop
Quaint on the outside, gigantic on the inside! could do so.) The rest of us succumbed to the strange attraction of the Christmas shop . Although deceptively quaint from the street, it was actually huge! We had to walk in a designated circuit, like Ikea. Rooms opened from rooms, incredibly full of millions more tree ornaments than anyone could imagine. The first room featured a very cute village scene populated by mechanically animated stuffed toys. The second room was impressive with a multi-storey decorated Christmas tree. The next room was dominated by a huge wooden tree-like, rotating construction with wise-men and angels. Then rooms were filled with linens, then more tree ornaments. The whole was overwhelming! I did buy one tree ornament for me and one for Anne. An hour was insufficient to see the whole store – we bolted for the exit to meet Eric to return to the buses.
This evening we had an extra half-hour to prepare for our special dinner in the “Portabello Dining Room” (forward part of the lounge). Everyone has the opportunity to dine once in this special restaurant. Dressed in our finest (silk scarf, black top, black slacks), we arrived to be warmly greeted. The delicious courses
Picturesque village
Such scenes kept me on my balcony every possible minutes. followed one another at a leisurely pace. A wonderful feature was the
spaghettini with pesto sauce tossed in a “parmesan bowl”, i.e., half a wheel of parmesan with a depression. For dessert, I had from the cheese tray option the delicious, dense fruit bread and honey to which they added fruit. Afterwards, Ian, Deirdre and I sat on the lower part of the Sun Deck, relishing the cool evening air and the eerie sight of the ship’s lights illuminating the trees on either side of the river. I was so tired I went to sleep shortly afterwards and didn’t seriously wake until 7:30 a.m.
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