Rothenburg - A Fairytale City From the Past

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Geo: 49.3788, 10.1871

There's an nice breakfast waiting for us in the dining room of the hotel. I prepaid the €6 each and it was well worth it. Just not having to run around looking for a place to eat is the best. We're already packed and ready to go. We clear up our bill while they call a taxi and we head to the HBF, about 7 or 8 minutes away. Yep, another €10. We have no options. With this luggage, we have to wait for others to get on the train first or we clog the entrance with all our bags. They only fit in certain places and if they're filled we have to move on, with all the people following behinds us saying, "What do they need all that luggage for?". We get to the station in plenty of time for the 10:26 to Rothenburg. Our next town is supposed to be really cool, kind of like a Christmas village.

They say there is a city in Germany where Christmas can be experienced all year long - Rothenburg ob der Tauber on the Romantic Road in Bavaria. Rothenburg is also home to one of the most romantic Christmas markets in Germany. Known for its medieval setting, Rothenburg is a walled city that has been left largely untouched for hundreds of years. Some complain of the Disney-like feel of the city, whose unspoiled beauty fills the city's cobblestone streets with visitors during the holidays.

Visiting Rothenburg ob der Tauber is like stepping into a time warp. While Christmas decorations can be bought all year long in Rothenburg, the Christmas holidays are a special time to view the city and the market in its illuminated splendor. Long nights and shorter, colder days: if you want to get the best out of a German tradition, then a visit to Rothenburg's Reiterlesmarkt is a must during the Advent period. Every year, the medieval town of Rothenburg is transformed into a winter's fairytale. As far back as the 15th century, Advent festivities have been accompanied by a wonderful Christmas market. This market can look back on over 500 years of living heritage that has hardly changed a lot since its historic origins.

To get there we have to take three trains and change trains within 12 minutes. On the train, I practice my stretching exercises, preparing myself for battle with the station stairs. The smaller stations don't have elevators and you must g down and under the tracks to get to the different platforms. At the last station before Rothenburg, we exit the train and I see a sign "Rothenburg" on platform 2. I grab a suitcase, get it to platform 2 and return for the other one. When we're all set on platform 2, I see a station lady and ask for confirmation that we're at the right spot.. She informs me that we should be on platform 7 and that all the platform signs say "Rothenburg". Now we have 4 minutes to get back down the stairs, cross underneath and pop up at platform 7, all while wearing tons of heavy clothes that no longer fit in the suitcases. Well, we made it with only a minute to spare.

The final 15 minute train ride gets us to Rothenburg and we grab a taxi to our hotel. It's right in the heart of the city and came highly recommended. Our room is on the 2nd floor (actually the 3rd) and looks out over the street. Very nice. The kid takes our big bags up and €2 takes care of that. It's a beautiful room, Mom says it's the nicest so far. We make reservations for 6:30 dinner, I take pictures from outside while Mom looks out our room window at me and then head out to explore the town. It truly is like Disneyland. Most of it was spared during the WWII bombings. We walk the cobblestone streets, peering into the decorated windows and occasionally venturing now and then into one of the quaint little shops to browse. The Christmas Market is in the town square and small in comparison to the others so far but the shops all have mostly Christmas items and they're decorated beautifully. Mom picks out a few things and then she finds the cuckoo clock shop, full of all kinds of them. From the Black Forest and handmade in Germany, they're beautiful. It's a family run business and the Grandma who started the whole thing with her husband is very friendly, giving us a history lesson of her life years ago as she cruised across America on her Harley. After expressing some indecision about the clock, she knocked 10% off, no VAT tax and free shipping. We went for it. Mom purchased a few other things since the discount covered all purchases, even those that we carried with us. She gave us two German knit hats, we took a picture with her and the clock in the background and then headed back to the hotel for dinner.

Dinner was quite elegant. A nice place. Mom had rump steak and I had the wienersnitzel. Both were excellent. After dinner, we went to the Night Watchman Tour, the number one activity as reviewed by Trip Advisor. When we got there, the sign said it was 90 minutes long and we both felt that was too long for us tonight so we passed on that and returned to our room for the night. It would be nice to spend another day here exploring more of the town.

Tomorrow, another 3 train event to get to Regensburg.

Bis spatter

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Photos

Our Hotel, the Romantik
Can you see Mom waving from our room window?

The Street Outside our Hotel.
That's Mom outside.

Just Purchased our Cuckoo Clock.
It's the one in the center just barely in the picture. Can't quite see the top completely.

Comments

[alanandmin]

How are you going to jam it in that already expanded luggage!

[Boomer]

They just sell it like that right out in the open? Don't the local authorities care that its Stollen?