Rothenburg

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Today started out docking at Gerlachshausen. From there, some of us took a bus to Rothenburg which was an hour and some away. We walked into this walled city and all of the sudden we went back in time. It was like nothing had changed since the medieval times. Okay some things have been modernized like sewers and sanitation, but it looked like a different world, like you read about in Shakespeare's stories or Chaucer's tales. During WWII only a small portion of this town was bombed so the majority never had to be rebuilt. So some of the sayings we use today came from those old times. Back in the day, animals such as dogs and cats and birds and rats and mice use to live in the ceiling area between the timbers and the thatch. When it would rain, it would get slippery and the animals would fall from the ceiling; hence, "It's raining cats and dogs". Also, the poor people used to have their houses made out of wood and straw/mud with dirt floors. The rich had theirs made of stone walls and stone floors. That's where the term "dirt poor" originated from. We then went to the Criminal Museum where we saw primitive means of torture and punishment. Absolutely cruel means of getting people to confess even when they were not guilty. They wanted all people to confess before they were put to death because they thought it was their duty to save everyone.



We had a wonderful lunch in town consisting of sauerbraten and spatzle (a German pasta)in a Ratskeller, the basement of the city hall or Rathaus. While we were visiting Rothenburg, the ship was sailing to Schweinfurt, a major ball bearing manufacturing city during WWII which was heavily bombed. We took the hot bus back to Schweinfurt to catch up with everyone and opted for some down time on the boat instead of heading into town.

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