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My friend Meg came into town for a few days so Matt and I decided to show her (and ourselves) Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This is an intact medieval walled city and was really incredible! I met Meg last summer when Ali and I spent our two weeks in Scotland. Meg and Ali went to high school together and have been friends for ages and Meg and I hit it off immediately. When I found out that she was going to be backpacking through Europe at the same time that Matt and I would be getting here I invited her to come visit and the timing worked out great. I showed her Heidelberg (I won't bore you with more pictures of the same) and we did Rothenburg, which I think was even better than Heidelberg. We got to walk along the battlements and even go into a home that was built in 1270 and has original furnishings. No matter how many castles and old homes I go into I'm still so amazed at how short people were back then. I mean, the ceilings are low even for me!
In addition to touring a 13th century house we also got
Drinking a lot of wine
Here's the reenactment of the mayor drinking the large tankard of wine that happens every day. to tour a medieval torture chamber, complete with dummies in the jail cells and in the stocks. The jail/torture chamber is in the basement and was actually used as a bomb shelter during WWII. It was pretty creepy being down there and I can't imagine having to stay down there for an extended period of time while bombs are falling on the city. Apparently part of the city was bombed during the war and they lost some buildings and a section of the wall but were able to rebuild. Amazingly, the majority of the city wasn't damaged by the bombings.
Rothenburg is extremely proud of it's history. There's a building in the town square that has a clock with a window on either side of it "which re-enacts the historic meistertrunk daily. The meistertrunk commemorates the event in 1631 when the walled town was under siege from the Imperial forces of Count Tilly. On a lark, Count Tilly told the city that he would spare them if anyone could drink a tankard containing about six pints of wine in one draught. Mayor Nusch took the challenge successfully, and the city was saved. The clock re-enacts the event hourly from
Watching the show
Everyone in the square watching the mayor drink that huge tankard of wine 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.. Rothenburg celebrates this rescue each year on Whitsun with a festival performance, grand army march and a field camp." (this was quoted from Wikipedia.
One of the local food specialties is schneeballen (snowballs). They come in large and small size and have many different flavors...the original flavors are powdered sugar and cinnamon and sugar but they also have chocolate, champagne truffle, and many others. They're hard, like scones, and you're supposed to eat them with coffee or tea. It was buy 4 get one free so Meg and I (Matt wasn't as excited about this as we were) got 4 flavored ones and an original cinnamon and sugar. Then, once we got home, we made tea and ate schneeballen until we were sick lol.
Something else I was able to finally try is schnitzel...and I liked it! For those of you who know about my very particular food preferences you know that pork isn't something I eat often.
So far Rothenburg is my favorite place we've been in Germany because of its authenticity and the fact that so much of the history is so accessible. They
Heading down to the torture chamber
Here's Meg and I in the hall heading to the torture chamber. See, it's creepy isn't it? have tours (which we didn't get there in time for) but we plan on doing the tour next time we go back.
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