Thursday, May 29, 2014

Germany and Switzerland: Day 4...Rothenburg ob der Tauber

I had debated and debated on which day trip we would take from Munich.  Part of me wanted to go to Salzburg, part of me wanted to go to see the famous Neuschwanstein Castle and the other part of me wanted to go to Rothenburg ob der Tauber.  There are just too many options.  When it came down to it, I cut up little pieces of paper wrote the name down and drew out a name.  I thought to be fair, I should do the best of five.  Rothenburg ob der Tauber was the winner!

Rothenburg was a little over a two hour train ride from Munich.  When we woke up, it was raining so we were glad that this was our day to spend away from Munich.  Rothenburg had beautiful weather!

All aboard!

We really enjoyed the train and watching the scenery go by.  Plus, you can totally drink on the trains, not that we were drinking at 8:00 am.

Rothenburg is a medieval walled city that was said to be the most quintessential German city according to the Nazi's.  The Allies used Rothenburg as a way to negotiate with the Nazi's to keep the city from being ruined. 

We arrived to Rothenburg and made our way through the wall to find cobblestone streets and half timbered houses.  It was like we stepped back into time into Geppetto's village from Pinocchio.  Which ironically enough, Rothenburg was what the village was based on.



The streets were very quiet when we arrived.  We wandered around the city, stopped and had some lunch and just really enjoyed the city.  



This is the most photographed intersection in all of Germany.  And yes, Ken was lucky enough to get his picture taken there.

Quite honestly, this was probably the most forced picture of the entire trip.  :)

We walked around the wall for a while and took in the views

Such a cute little city

One of the well known things in Rothenburg is a Schneeball.  I knew I wanted to try one or two.  

Come to mama

After we stuffed our faces of Schneeball, we walked around and shopped a bit.  This is where things got ugly.  Apparently the Asian Invasion was dropped off on about 15 different tour buses.  They were running around taking pictures and had no regard for anyone else.  I apologize if I am offending someone that is Asian and has self awareness.  You clearly were not in Rothenburg on May 17th.  We decided to go ahead and walk back to the train station and take an earlier train to get back to Munich.

Someone took a little Theo nap on the train

Our only real transportation issue with the train happened on our way back to Munich.  We accidentally read the arrivals instead of the departures and did not realize the train we needed was right in front of us and we missed it. Oh well, we just waited about 45 minutes for the next one.  We walked around the little village and Ken saw a canoe and found a river on his phone so we walked to check it out.  Let me tell you, he walked faster trying to find that river than he did at any other point in the trip.  About a half mile from the train station, we found that river.

Um yeah, that was the beautiful river

This sign was on the path by the river.  Not cool.

What does one do with 45 minutes to spare in a remote German village?  Go into the train station and buy beer and what you thought was wine.

I thought this was Chardonnay but it ended up being a little bubbly.  Clearly I need to practice reading German.

Killing some time at the train station

Apparently downing a bottle of bubbly makes me need a little Theo nap.


We made it back to Munich and stopped by the Marienplatz again.  Next thing I know, Ken left my side and joined a tour group.

After Rothenburg, we had to have a good laugh about this one.  Back to the bus.


We decided to stop by the Hofbrauhaus for dinner.  Just like last time we walked in, walked around a bit and left.  It was just not our kind of place.  We felt like a lot of the people were in there put on a dog and pony show for the tourists.  We ended up at Augustiner again, which we really enjoyed.

I think it goes without saying that we consumed more dunkel from our favorite brewery.




The empty beers must mean it is time to leave Germany and head to Switzerland!

We walked back to the Marienplatz to get a few last pictures of the square and to see it at night time. The days prior we had already made our way back to our hotel before dark, so we really wanted to see it all lit up.







Good bye Germany!

1 comment:

Melanie said...

SO awesome!!! And I'd have to agree on the thing about Asian tourists. The whole time we were in Italy on our honeymoon, we found their groups to be the most annoying of all the tourists. They are very unaware!