October 17, 2010, Sunday in Rothenburg

We had breakfast in our hotel restaurant and bundled up in our new down coats and Ugg boots for the day in Rothenburg. Eric had been to this village 20 years ago and has wanted to bring me here since.

Our first adventure of the day was to walk the wall surrounding the city.

View of this beautiful old city from the wall.

After we walked the wall we went into St. Jacob's church where we were able to see a 500 year old Riemenschneider altarpiece. This is one of Germany's greatest woodcarvings. It was unbelievable and a joy to see in this beautiful old church.

Okay time for some shopping. This old city has become a very popular tourist destination so it has many shops. We went in several and I finally started to make a dent in my gift giving list.

One shop in particular named Kathie Wohlfahrt was really something. It is a Christmas shop and looked like any other shop from the outside, but once you entered you disappeared into Christmas land for a long time. The shop went on and on and had everything you can imagine for Christmas. I thought I was in Frankenmuth until I stepped back outside the shop.

All that shopping made us hungry. Time to have a Schneeball. These are like a doughnut but they are strips of dough each fried and wrapped around each other into a ball. Then they are covered in powdered sugar, chocolate, caramel, cinnamon and sugar, and other deliciousness.  They are very popular here and are pretty good but I can't imagine the calories in one of these. Doesn't seem to stop us from making our purchase.

We climbed the Town Hall tower.

View from the top.

The climb was not bad but stepping out into the cool breeze on that tiny landing  was freaky!

Another delicious meal in another warm, inviting restaurant and we were geared up for our hike to the Toppler Castle.

We hiked outside the walls of the city, down a winding path through the woods into Tauber Valley. This is where we found the 600 year old Toppler Castle, which looks more like a tree house. It was the summer home of the town's Mayor in the 15th century. We had read that it was worth a look due to the furnishings, but it was closed so we were not able to get inside. I still enjoyed the walk in the cool, fall air. We decided the hike back up to Rothenburg was good for a treat before leaving the city.

We each enjoyed a dessert with hot drinks, at a very modern decorated bakery before leaving Rothenburg.

We left through one of the tunnels leading out of this very neat medieval walled city for our long journey back to Holtzheim.

Eric had been looking forward to this trip partly to drive the autobahn in Germany where there are several stretches with no speed limits. Unfortunately, he ended up more frustrated than anything else. There are some stretches where he was able to get well over one hundred mph, but there is so much traffic and so much construction that you just get going and have to sit again in another traffic jam.

We have been surprised by all the traffic everywhere we have been in Europe. There are way more cars on the roads than I ever expected. No matter where we go we sit in traffic. Driving in Michigan will be like the lost city when we get home. It will be nice.