Advertisement
Guten Tag. May 3rd was a wonderful day, but I had to postpone my blog entry until today. Let me explain...
I started out the day in Rothenburg. I woke up in my bed and breakfast for... what else? Breakfast. By the way... it's happening again. When I was in Italy for about a week, I began to comprehend the language better, and begin 'speaking' Italian. I have now been in Germany for about a week, and I was able to communicate purely in German to request my breakfast! Very fun! A wonderful bounty of meats, breads, a boiled egg, coffee, and milk. I learned that the 'cranky older woman' that I met last night was Frau Riedel, the person that the B&B was named for. I officially met her and her son (he's about 60 yrs old) Rory. I learned that Rory made a lot of the furniture in the B&B. He also showed me a picture of the dead father. I enjoyed the conversation and set out to explore Rothenburg in the daytime. The daytime began to bring in day-trippers into the town, and it turned from the peaceful nightspot into more of a tourist destination. It was
fun walking the town in the daylight, following along in my guidebook, seeing all the crossbow slits in the walls for the archers to defend the walled town years ago. The towns walls were fun to walk on and around, I felt like one of those archers looking outside the slits defending the town. I went to the Medieval Crime and Punishment Museum which focused on history of the law and execution of medieval torture processes, very.... enlightening? I think my favorite new torture method, which they only used for murderers, is 'death by wheel'. The victim was tied to the ground with a few boards under the arms and legs to support them off the ground. Then, the executioner took a 3-4 foot wagon wheel and dropped in on the arms and legs between the boards until every bone in the body was broken! Then the dead victim was woven through the spokes of the wagon wheel and put on display for the townspeople to see what happens to murderers! Very effective. I also found out the history of an executioner's mask, and it's actually to protect the executioner! Evil curses were thought to come from the victim at
execution, so the executioner wore a mask to prevent him from getting the curse, and even to the point of the executioner asking for mercy FROM THE VICTIM! I have quite a few pictures of the town, and hopefully they will give you a good feel for the town. It still had the wonderful medieval charm about it though.
I had to leave Rothenburg for my next town. While on the train leaving the area, I met Irvin and Susan, a wonderfully life-loving couple from Washington state. Irvin helped me along with train schedules on him Palm since I was technically handicapped (without my Internet access), and we had wonderful conversation that made the train ride go quickly. My next destination was the one thing I planned during this whole trip, and I knew I wanted to do it. I hopped on the train and, after about 3 connections, got to the Rhine River valley just northwest of Frankfurt Germany. Miles and miles of vineyards, wine is very popular in this region. A person I met said that the Rhine river valley is the birthplace of riesling wine. I ended my day's journey in Bacharach, a very small town
of maybe a thousand or so people call home, but for tonight, it would be my home...
IN THE CASTLE!
Yes, I hiked up the small steep hill from Bacharach to Stahleck Castle where I had a reservation for the night. The castle was in great shape, and has been a hotel for a few hundred years now, since the 1600's. From the castle, I had a fantastic view of both upstream and downstream of the Rhine River. I can see why this was a great defensive position for a castle! I met a few people as I was enjoying the view, and before I knew it, we had our own group of people looking to pillage and plunder the castle! We did find that the castle served the local riesling wine, so we all began talking about our travels, the castle, Europe, and many other topics that aren't fit for print! :-) Trina, Marcus, Gabrielle, Rick, Maki, Satoku, Mikako and myself were kings and queens of the castle, especially after 10pm. That was when the workers left the castle, closed the front gates, and no one gets in or out! We stay up until 1am having a
blast and getting to know each other, but slowly, our travels were getting the best of us, and exhaustion set in. Everyone went their rooms, and after everyone had settled down for the night, I got up and went into the castle courtyard. Let me just say that it was the things fairytales were made of. Total silence, total darkness, miles and miles of vineyards around, I could see the faint light of the horizon all around me, and I was protected by a huge castle with a locked gate door. I felt invincible! I just stood there enjoying the moment, the silence, the sound of the wind, the slight chill in the air, the unreal feeling of where I was, and then it was off to bed.
Oh, and the title of today's blog? The one thing that I learned from the Rocky Horror Picture Show is that 'Castles don't have phones...' They had no Internet 'phone' terminals available, and I was locked up for the night, so no blog. Ha!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.102s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0744s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
