So Jeff and I got up at 4:30 so we could make our 6:14 train. We rode the ICE from Dortmund to Wurzburg. It was pretty interesting, very fast. Jeff slept for most of the time, but I stayed awake, partly because I had to keep showing our tickets to the little man that came by after every stop to check for them. When we arrived in Wurzburg, we ran and grabbed some food and then ran to our connector train. We rode this crappy soviet era train from Wurzburg to Steinach, and it seemed to take forever. The conductor had a really thick accent and I could barely understand him. When I finally heard something that I interpreted as Steinach I stood up and started pulling our suitcase out. A very nice elderly gentleman asked me, “Steinach?” And I nodded because he didn’t sound German and he didn’t sound American, so I figured a nod would be the best response. From Steinach we rode an ultramodern train to Rothenburg, it was fancy. (So I don’t have any pictures from the ride to Rothenburg, because the camera was in the bottom of my bookbag, and hard to get to.) Once we got to the train station, we had to find a map and figure out where we were on it (Thank you Deutsch Bahn lady) and then we set off. We walked up this really long hill and then we saw it. Rothenburg city gates. It was pretty awesome. Jeff dug out the camera and took this:
Once you stepped through the gate it was like you were in back in the past. Albeit, with lots of old people, and japanese tourists.
I took a picture of the outside of our hotel, but it isn’t fancy or anything.
We stayed at a place called Hotel am Wissen Turm. It was GREAT. The owners were very nice, they allowed us to check in early and everything. Jeff and I imedietally took a nap. The beds were very comfortable.
The room was small, and on the third floor. There was no TV but we had our own bathroom. And I think we also had the best view. Our window looked right at the eponymous White Tower.
I think all the rooms below us would have been looking across the courtyard at the building next to us, and the rooms across from us would have been looking at the side of another building. So I think we were very lucky indeed. The food in the restaurant downstairs was quite good as well, though a little pricey. Friday evening (we arrived on Thursday around noon) Jeff and I had already had dinner but we had also done a lot of walking and were hungry again about nine, so we headed downstairs for a baked potato and some bread. They were a little taken aback that we didn’t want food food but then they offered to make us fries instead. Fries aren’t on the menu but they were delicious! They were homemade, and fresh from the deep fryer, oh man, they totally hit the spot. So yeah, I recommend if you are travelling in Rothenburg stay at Hotel am Wissen Turm (they were also the cheapest in town).
Now as for the town itself, the only germans I saw were the ones that worked there. The rest were, as I said above, old people or japanese. It was VERY touristy, and the prices reflected that. A plastic knight toy that cost 10 euros here was 16 euros in the shops in Rothenburg. And every restaurant was also expensive. Jeff and I walked around town, saw the sites, but in a leisurly manner. Whenever we got tired we went home. It was very nice, and relaxing, a vacation from our vacation as it were. Thursday we just walked around the city, ate dinner, and found a Schlecker (german CVS). For dinner we ate at this Italian restaurant, it was kind of crappy but it was the cheapest we saw. Schlecker was great, we could buy cheap supplies without having to deal with tourists, since they none knew what it was. We also tried something called a Schneeball. It was gross, it tasted like cardboard with powdered sugar on it. I don’t even know what is was supposed to be, but whatever it was it was YUCKY.
Friday, we went downstairs and had the free breakfast they offered. It was DELICIOUS. There was a croissant, and some rolls, butter, meat, cheese, some lingon berry jam, eggs, orange juice, and coffee. Jeff and I cleaned the table. the rolls were wonderful, the meat yummy, and the jam to die for. Oh it was so good. I miss that breakfast, just thinking about it makes me want to have it again. Sigh. After our very delicious breakfast we went to the Kriminalmuseum and looked at the exhibits. They were pretty interesting.
When people got caught cheating at cards or dice they were forced to walk around town wearing this necklace. It was huge! And probably weighed quite a bit what with the big chunks of wood, and metal chain.
This was the head of a very pretty mace they had on display. I don’t know if it was actually used, it looks very ceremonial to me.
This is pretty funny. When a musician was particularly bad they forced him to wear this contraption. It locked around his neck and then his fingers were forced into the little slots and locked down as well. It made him look like he was playing it. It amused Jeff and I anyway.
This is one of the fancier neck violins that they had on display. The woman’s (this particular one was for only women) head was locked in the center hole and then her hands were locked on either side of her head.
This is a neck violin as well, except its designed to hold two people. Here’s a close up of the illustration of it in use.
Just in case you can’t read the picture, it says:
Double Neck Violin for quarrelsome Women. Also quarrelsome couples were punished in such manner until harmony was once again restored in their household.
Jeff and I had a good chuckle about that on too. It would suck to live in the middle ages though. I mean first you were punished for things such as having a row with your spouse, or neighbor. Or being a bad musician. And then most of the punishments were public humiliations, like being forced to wear a neck violin. Or these interesting contraptions.
These were masks that people were forced to wear for various offenses. The museum had a TONof them, all a little bit diffrent. Anddiffrent features meant diffrent things. Like the eye circles on the first mask, meant that the offender saw too much. Some had a protruding tongue, which meant they spoke to much. One had big ears, big eyes, and the tounge, which meant bascially that guy saw and heard everything and went around telling it. It was pretty interesting actually. Unfortantly a lot of my pictures suffer from glare issues so I’m not really going to post them.
Of course they also had various torture implements. You know, thumbscrews, the rack and the like. One looked particularly nasty, called The Mouth Pear. You can look it up if you want. It was pretty bad. But anyway, the museum was really interesting.
After the Kriminalmuseum we walked around some more. This tme though we walked along the wall. It was amazing. It was probably my favorite part. Now I’m just going to throw up some pictures, and if there is anything I need to tell you that is particularly informative I’ll let you know.
The is Gasthaus Griffen (since you can’t really read the sign). I actually don’t know anything about it, I just liked the curly bits on the sign.
Woohoo hotness! That is Jeff on the wall.
Further away from Jeff.
This is the view from… I actually have no idea what direction this was, I don’t have the map here either. This is the opposite side of town from the Bahnhof. So its just overlooking valley.
And this if on the other side. Rothenburg is actually kind of curved along this ridge and when you stand on one side you can see the rest of the town. Jeff and I didn’t know this at first and were in the park (the place on the ridge in the picture that has no buildings, on the far left side) and were looking out at this gorgeous looking medieval town and going, “Wow. We should try and go visit that!” Then when we walked along the wall we discovered yes we could visit that place, because it was THE SAME PLACE! *Forehead smack*
This is actually my favorite picture of Jeff from the trip. And this was actually a pretty cool place. So we were just walking along the wall, when we suddenly found ourselves at a door. We didn’t have much choice as there was no where to go but back so we go though the door. And find ourselves confronted with rickety stairs. We nervously climb up. And up. And up again. and find ourselves in a large open room. And then we see the cannon. So random and cool! And we found it all by ourselves! I think that was our favorite part of the city, the fact that we felt free enough, and safe enough, to explore on our own. Equipped only with a map and our sense of direction we just roamed. When we saw a door that was open we would go through it. We didn’t know where it went but still it was an adventure! I liked it a lot. I think taking part in a tour would have taken away some of the feeling of discovery.
Here’s another artsy shot from along the wall.
And here’s me! Jeff took this photograph and I think that it is one of the best pictures of me taken EVER. It’s on par with my senior pictures, and those were taken by a professional photographer.
We ended up eating dinner at this little place we found, when we went in I heard all the customers speaking german, so I knew that it must be good. And it was. I had Jagerschnitzel with Spaetzle… oh man. I loved it! Jeff tried a Radler while we were there. A Radler is beer with sprite. Its very popular over here. He said he liked it, and would have to introduce it to his roomate. After that we went to the train station, and using my german, I got us a new itinerary. Our original one had us getting home at 10:30 at night. We wanted to get home earlier, even if we had to start earlier, so I got us a new one, which got us home at 6:30 instead. It was very nice. After that, we went home and watched a movie. That was the night we got our delicious home made fries.
Saturday after another delicious breakfast we checked out and made our way home. It took 8 and a half hours to get home but everything went pretty smoothly, there was one moment when our train was late and we almost missed our next one, but we slid through the doors and made it so everything was fine. We were glad to be home.
So yeah. Sorry this took so long to get up, but I had three cards full of pictures to sift through, and real life to attend to. But I’ve discovered the FREE FAST internet in the library which means I no longer have to worry about pictures using up my bandwidth! Woot! My next project however is to resize all those Solingen pictures, I’ve had reports of more than one person being unable to load the page because of them. So yeah, I’m going to try to resize them and make it load faster. Sorry about that. I’ll let ya’ll know as soon as I manage to get that done.