Cities of Light: Day 9
Day 9: Thursday, October 26, 2023 - Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany, and Würzburg, Germany
The day's statistics:
- Weather: overcast to partly cloudy to rainy, upper 50s
- Steps: 13.046 Linda; 13,518 Steve
- Miles traveled (approximately): 128
We followed our normal wake-up routine.
Breakfast was the usual egg benedict for Linda, and I had the buffet.
Today's excursion was called "Rothenburg ob der Tauber" and started a little later than they usually do, today at 9:30.
Our guide was Tiago.
"Rothenburg ob der Tauber" means "Red castle above the Tauber [river]". It is a quaint medival town and one of the few with its
completely intact city walls.
We had a bus ride first that lasted a couple hours. About half of the trip was on the A3 Autobahn. On the way, some sights, including solar
farms, samples of extensive agriculture (a lot of sugarbeet, but also some chick pea, canola, and rickseed), and some wind turbines.
When we got solar panels on our house, we were limited by how many we could install. While I'm not sure if that was a Delaware thing, a
DelMarVa Power thing, or whatever, seeing this outbuilding with so many panels - 210 of them - on it was rather interesting.
The government is pushing for eco friendly energy creation and the acquisition of panels is getting to the point where it is more
cost effective for farmers to plant solar panels and get year-round income from excess generation than it is to plant crops. There
is still plenty of agriculture going on, but there is also a noticable increase in the appearance of these panels.
More sights.
Roundaboouts - or rotaries - are popular in Europe. A number of them were decorated and or had plantings on them.
Whatever these were, they were now out of season - were they grape vines?
We finally arrived at Rothenburg ob der Tauber.
We started outside the wall, and then continued our tour going inside.
There was a section of the inside of the wall that still had the allure, or wall-walk, intact. I wanted to go
up there during our free time, but it was too far away from where we were left that time did not permit.
The old horse stalls is now used for vehicle parking.
We were told a story about the past. Some Jewish residents were good businessmen - especially when it came to financing. Some didn't
like that so they started spreading rumors that they were bad people and an effort was made to push them out of the town.
We proceeded onward, hearing stories about the city that included: 2,500 residents live inside the walls; WW2 damaged 40% of the city;
and between 1618 and 1648 there was a war between the Catholics and Protestants.
Pope John Paul II lived in this salmon colored house in 1986 (before he was Pope). He supposedly lived in this town to try to learn German.
He was only there for six months. Our guide said he's lived in Germany for six years and STILL hasn't learned the language.
Some other sights in the town.
The bottles that adorn this doorway have a special shape (flattened some, and rounded) - it is a government
controlled shape, meaning that the bottle MUST come from this region in order to have this shape.
Moving on.
We arrived at the market square.
Also, at noon the city hall bells chime. There are two figures in windows too: the left is Catholic General Tilly and
the right is Mayor Nanch. The General bet the Mayor that he couldn't drink 3 liters of wine without stopping. But he did,
won the bet, and saved the Protestant town from desimation.
(If I knew, I would have stood further to the right.)
After the bells, we were told about the famous Christmas shop down the road. The ladies were warned to keep track of their husbands in the shop.
We were heading to a restaurant at the far end of the city, not far from the gate.
On the way...
On the way to the restaurant, Tiego told us about a funnel cake sort of snack that is popular. He stepped into a shop -
within a door or two of the meat shop - to get a sampler plate to let us try. He had to fight off strangers - people not
in his tour group - from taking samples for themselves.
In front of the restaurant is this building. It is at the crease of two roads that form a Y-shape. A number of people were taking
selfies in front of it. It is popular because the building appeared in a couple movies, one was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Lunch today was at Gastof Glocke Winery and Hotel (and apparently Restaurant).
We sat with Ken and Vicki, and Pam and David from Tennessee.
We both had the same meals: rolled cabbage and mashed potatoes, and créme caramel. We had bread and butter, as well as red wine.
It was a nice little restaurant.
Our meal was over and we stepped outside - and it was raining.
We had to be back to the restaurant by 2:30 to depart.
We headed back toward the square, and turned left. We passed the Christmas store. We were headed to, according to our map,
a park at the far end - from here - of town.
On the way to the park, we passed some more sights, including a Teddy Bear store called "Teddyland".
Incidentally, the giant stones on the corners - such as on the Teddyland building - are cornerstones and were
placed in order to keep the corners from getting damaged by the horse and carriages from years ago.
We arrived at the park - it was somewhat smaller than we thought it would be.
There were two sides and one had a little better view than the other.
The passageway back into the city.
We went through the passageway, beared left, and passed by a church - and saw other things too.
After some sightseeing, we made our way to the restaurant to meet the group.
After the group gathered, we started off to the bus.
We passed through this gate. The yellow building near the gate is a bar - it used to be a barracks.
We had a relatively short walk to the bus. We boarded, and headed to our next stop about an hour away: the Palace of the Prince Bishops.
We got off the bus and headed into the palace - but we had to pretty much walk almost completely around the palace.
We walked through the main gate.
We walked along the gardens - though there weren't too many flowers in bloom (it must look great in season).
At the end of the front path...
We got to the endturned the corner and, oh, more gardens.
At the very end was an English Garden - which was just as plain as the other.
Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun...
We went through another - though smaller - gate. Turned right again, and were now in a large square with views
of the town on one side and the palace on the other.
Some original bullet damage from the war.
We entered the palace, passed through security and gathered in the main foyer / reception hall.
We ascended the grand staircase.
The "room" that contained the staircase had nothing else in it but the staircase. One has to leave this room to get to the rest of the palace.
At the top of the stairs, however, our attention was turned to the ceiling.
I tried to stitch these two images of the ceiling together, but it became too warped and lost its grandure (and yes, the focus is off a little).
Looking at the various components of this massive fresco, which at six thousand square feet is the largest one in the world.
The artwork represented the four known continents at the time of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America.
And some of the artwork in the middle.
In the corners were figures too - though I only got three of the four for some reason.
There was statuary all over the place lining the railings around the staircase.
While my focus was more on the ceiling, Linda's focus was on the statues.
I took a couple shots out the window before we left this area.
The castle on the hill was origianlly the Fortress of the Virgin Mary, from 600s.
We moved on to the "White Room".
There were figures in the corners of this room too.
Near these figures, did you see the tapestry in the ceiling? It actually isn't tapestry but painted plaster.
Off the White Room was a ball room. It too had statues and artwork.
Time was limited - we do have a ship's schedule to take into account.
The group was finishing up at the palace - perhaps we spent a little too much time admiring the fresco...
Before the grooup headed out, I was able to get shots of the first room on either side of the Ball Room, and one of the hallways.
We returned to the main floor. Off the foyer was a reception room.
We left the palace and headed to the bus.
We went back through the smaller gate first.
Then we passed the gardens again.
Just before boarding the bus we said good-bye to Tiago. While most of our guides are usually great, he was extra special. He
was also very funny. One thing he also like to say was something similar to "My noble guests...".
The bus ride didn't last that long, it was still overcast, and it was even starting to get a little dark.
We embarked, went to our room and dropped off the usual suspects.
We then headed to the lounge, grabbed a cup of coffee, and found a seat.
At 6:30 it was time for our port talk, followed by the chef's review.
Not before long it was 7:00 and time to head to dinner.
We sat with Eric, Margie, and Sheila.
Linda had the Casear salad, Buffalo mozzarella in baked eggplant rolls, and the ice cream of the day - vanilla.
I had the crab cake, roast chateaubriand béarnaise, and moelleux au chocolat.
After dinner, we headed back to our room, and eventually went to bed.