Traveling the Romantic Road

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

This morning we woke up and packed our bags and headed out early. We took the subway to go and pick up our rental car from Avis so that we could begin our driving portion of the trip. Before I left the states I printed directions from Google and since they didn't offer the gps we didn't ask. Big mistake! We ended up making at least 6 u-turns before getting on the autobahn and then for some reason the directions had us driving in the direction of Prague which made no sense and we should have followed our instincts.  As we got closer to the Czech border we decided to stop at a gas station were for 8 euro we bought a road atlas.  Once we got turned around it didn't take too long to get there. On the autobahn I got our little vw golf up to 180 but it was too windy to go faster. Driving fast is very fun!

We pulled into the parking lot outside the city walls of Rothenberg ob der Tauber and left our stuff in the car while we walked around a bit. Oh my, this city is the cutest little town I've ever been to in real life! It looks like it is straight out of a fairytale and I am in love with it. There are a lot of tourists here but I don't even care.

We walk around a bit and stop in at a celler restaurant recommended by Rick Steves where we order the German version of Martinellis only it tastes sooo much better. I ordered the pork schnitzel with fries and it's real meat and it is pan fried and incredibly delicious!

After lunch we wander around a bit taking pictures and then head over to the medeival torture museum. Awesome museum all about the history of crime and punishment. I can't  wait to post some pictures of the crazy torture devices!

On our way out of the museum we stopped at the museum cafe to try Schneeballn. Schneeballn are local pastry that is basically strips of pie crust balled up and baked and then sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar or dipped in something like a candy coating. They are okay but I'm not sure what all of the fuss is about, they aren't that amazing.  Along with our schneeballn I had and eiskaffe which is a cold latte with a scoop of ice cream and whipped cream on top. It was amazing!

From there we headed to a souvenier shop where we got a free map of the town and some great gifts to take home. We finally checked into our 500 year old guesthouse and went to get our packs from the car and put them in the room. We relaxed for a little bit and then headed out to get some ice cream before our evening entertainment. I got a scoop of rhubarb and blueberry, the rhubarb was nice and sour while the blueberry was nice and sweet. We ate our ice cream in the market square while we waited for the night watchman's tour!

There were a lot of people waiting for the tour including a large group of middle school children. We weren't sure about the quality of the tour given the size of the crowd. However, the night watchman did not disappoint. He was entertaining while also giving a lot of information about the history of the town. I learned that the city was it's own little country for about 400 years and had it's own city government. I also learned that the night watchmen was mainly responsible for keeping the city safe at night and make sure that a fire didn't start at night.

After the tour we went to have dinner and do a little wine tasting. We had beef roast over spätzle noodles along with 5 tiny glasses of wine that came with a card telling what each one was. I discovered that I don't like sweet wines, I like dry white wines. Who knew?

Suzie :-)