Day 11: Donauworth Day 4:

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Another heavy breakfast and off we went, this time back to see the Harburg Castle or Schloss Harburg. We reached the south side of Harburg, remembering the north side road up was closed last time, and after a couple false starts, I found the Schloss Strasse road that took us to the castle. It was almost 10am, opening time, but we took some photos and by the time we reached the ticket office the 10am tour had already started. We paid our 3 Euros each to enter the castle grounds (the actual tour was hourly and cost another 4 Euros) and the WC to take care of business. This castle was much closer to my idea of a castle versus some others that have been more like a palace than a castle. It had several towers, a chapel, and most of a walkway along the battlements. I bought a thimble for my collection in the gift shop, and then we wandered around where we could, taking photos from the viewing platform, visiting the chapel, etc. When 11am rolled around, we had both decided to forego the cost of the tour and decided to just take the scenic path down to Harburg for our morning coffee, knowing of course that we would have to climb back up for the car. The path down was pretty cool, with lots of good photo-taking spots. When we reached the bottom, we crossed an old bridge, Steinerne Brucke, and spotted a cafe/bakery called Mayer's Handwerks & Backerei. Manoli had her coffee and I had my cappuccino, relaxing and enjoying the view of the town and castle above.

I asked a local where the Rathaus was so we could get a map and some information and got a German reply I didn't understand, but he did point back across the bridge. Off we went, back across the bridge and easily found the marktplatz or main square in the older part of town, and then the Rathaus. We picked up a map and pamphlet and looked to see what else there was to see in this small town. It turned out to not be much besides the castle, just a couple of churches and a fountain in the main square. We'd passed the St. Barbara Protestant Church on the way down from the castle, so we headed off to check out the Herz-Jesu Catholic church. Manoli did her rounds of the church, taking some photos, and we headed back up to the car, this time by a different route just to see more things. Manoli loves to take photos of doors, and apparently there were a good many interesting ones along the way. We reached the castle and our car and decided since it was still early that we'd check out the next town south of our hostel, Rain. Yes, that is the name of the town, and believe it or not, it did rain while we were in Rain

Rain is about 15 kilometers southeast of Donauworth, and can be reached on pretty good roads. As I think I've mentioned, pretty much all the roads in Germany so far have been well maintained... maybe narrow, but well maintained. When we reached Rain, I easily found what appeared to be a free parking space quite near the marktplatz and the Rathaus. It was only about 1pm and the Rathaus Tourist Information Center didn't open again until 2, so we just strolled around town. Most of the town seems to lie on the one main road through the main square, Donauworther Strasse or Haupstrasse as it is named in town. I guess there is more to the town, but most of the older buildings are within a block of this road. Since it was getting close to 2pm and we'd already learned that most places stop serving lunch at 2, we started looking for some place. We ended up at the Cafe Gut, a nice little place just after we passed the Rathaus again. There seemed to be some confusion with the waitress as to where we were supposed to sit, but we finally got a table in the shade and looked at the menu. Manoli decided on the salad bar at 3.50 Euros and I spotted some type of schnitzel at 7.50, so I ordered that with coffee. Manoli said their salad bar was a bit sparse, I guess being late they hadn't replenished it, but she got a decent sized plate with a little of everything. My Reimerschnitzel (or something like that) was pretty good, although a bit dry. The waitress did bring to large packets of ketchup for the fries though.

After lunch, we returned to the Rathaus and picked up a map and pamphlet, and soon realized that like Harburg, there wasn't very much to see. The only medieval remains where a Wasserturm (or water tower) and one gate called the Schwabtor. They also had an old Catholic church called St. Johannes der Taufer. We did notice there was a place called the Dehner Blumenpark that looked like a pretty good sized garden though. Rain was publicizing itself as the Blumenstadt an der Romanischen Strasse, or the Town of Blooms on the Romantic Road, so off we went. The gigantic garden spade at the entrance was impressive, then we saw the Dehner Garden Center and couldn't believe it. I've been to a lot of garden centers in the states, but this one makes those look like tiny things. This place was humongous, and even had a large cafeteria/restaurant in the same giant building. To top things of, apparently the company Dehner that I assume has garden centers around Germany, had a very large, very impressive garden to stroll through. We spent about an hour I think just walking through part of it. See the photos to get a better idea, keeping in mind you're only seeing a small part of it all. Around 4pm, we decided to head back to the hostel. Later in the evening, we walked down to a nearby bakery to satisfy Manoli's craving for a pastry and bought a large slice of cake for her and a nice cream puff thingy for me, before heading to the local Edeka for a couple more items.

Tomorrow we check out of this hostel and head down the road, stopping along the way to Fussen to check out the world famous Weiskirche. We are going to spend two nights in Fussen so we can see the Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein Castles. Both are very famous and may be hard to get tickets for.

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