ROTHENBURG PS

I forgot to mention the Kahte Wolfhart Christmas Store in Rothenburg. This is the original store, I think, and we saw these stores in Heidelberg and Oberammergau. After about 10 minutes I was feeling like I really needed to get out of there - talk about Christmas overload! It was almost claustrophobic. We bought a few ornaments (one of the few things I 'allowed' Don to buy.)

And here is a blog primer for those not used to these things: If you click on the red text in the post, it will take you to a related website. Just click on the back arrow to return to the blog. I plan to add links for the castles where we weren't allowed to take pictures.

Since it occurred to me that I could do this, I have added a link in the Burg Eltz post, too. It's official site is a little annoying to use, but you can see pictures of the interior on this site.

FUSSEN

We left Rothenburg after lunch. The original plan had been to drive a combination of the Romantic Road and Autobahn. But, at this point, we were both anxious to be at the next destination, which is the heart of Bavaria and the 'fairytale' castles. Looking at that statement reminds me how difficult it becomes to 'stay in the moment' and enjoy it all. But we made our decision to save a few hours of time in the car. And even on the Autobahn, the views were beautiful. Up to this point, we hadn't seen mountains. As we drove south, I was just suddenly aware of the Alps. And I felt an odd sense of comfort in seeing the mountains. I have been surrounded by mountains for the last 7 1/2 years and didn't realize that I had been missing that type of land mark.

































































As we neared Fussen, we saw the construction on the Autobahn, extending it down to Fussen. It was notable that everything wasn't all torn up around the construction.













We stayed in Schwangau, just next to Fussen.

This is the balcony of our room.












































































Okay, so the stairwell to the rooms was, in a way, a little creepy :)











The yard from our balcony.

























The view of Neuschwanstein from our balcony.
















Two houses from our house was this lane that we walked to the castles, about 20 minutes at a more leisurely pace. Neuschwanstein on the left, Hohenschwangau on the right (the orange castle.)








Neuschwanstein

















At night












Hohenschwangau. You will learn more about Hohenschwangau in the post on the 'Fairytale Castles.'









The garden at the house on the corner of 'our' street and the lane.












A Bagel kitty sleeping on top of a covered wood pile in the lane. (Jason's sweet cat is named Bagel and is this kind of cat.)









A small castle across the lane. It is a residence for a prince or some such royalty.











Fussen in the evening.
















At the Franciscan Monastery you get this view of Fussen. That is Hohes Schloss in the background.












Another view.












The Franciscan Monastery.















This is at the Monastery. If you click on the picture, you will see that above this gate it says 'The End of the Romantic Road.' I thought it was kind of funny.....








The city museum. Concerts are held in this courtyard.











Another view of the museum courtyard. We were curious about the 'trees' - large branches - sitting in buckets of water at the doorways to most buildings. We find out about them tomorrow.








This is the ruined old ceiling in one of the covered areas of the museum courtyard.











Sights in Fussen. This was a really interesting fountain. The 'heads' on the tops of the pillars spin around.










The Church of the Holy Ghost, elaborately painted. We found a lot of this type of building art throughout Bavaria.















You can see the little door cut in this gate. Don really likes this kind of thing :)
















Hohes Schloss (High Castle) sitting above Fussen. It is a summer residence for the Bishop of Augsburg.









Hohes Schloss is notable for the painting on the buildings that produces tricks of perspective. While many buildings have the actual colored brick on the edges of the towers, these are just paint that look like the real thing until you get right up to it.







Notice the sundial on the right side. We saw a lot of sundials on buildings.















The windows all had the perspective altering painting around them.















The Lech River. Try as we might, we couldn't get a picture that showed the amazing color of this water. It was a mint green. I've never seen anything like it. The color comes from some mineral in the water.

ROTHENBURG OB DER TAUBER

We only had one evening, night, and morning in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This was the only place where we only stayed one night. (There are other Rothenburgs in Germany, thus the qualifier. Now that we are all clear on which Rothenburg it is, I will henceforth call it simply Rothenburg. And may I say here, keeping straight what is spelled 'burg' and what is spelled 'berg' is a pain? I think there is a reason to the difference - burg is town, berg is mountain, but is doesn't always seem that clear to me. And maybe I should apologize for misspellings in the blog - I think I am a decent speller, but something happens while writing blog posts that messes with my ability to spell, so, sorry about THAT!)




(After that aside,) Don hopes that we can return and spend more time in Rothenburg. It has it's charms, to be sure, and I am willing to give it more time, too.

Rothenburg had a whopping 6,000 people in residence in its heyday, from 1150 to 1400. Today, 2/3 of the residents are now employed serving the tourist trade. But, in the evening and morning, it was a quiet, charming town.


















The town hall.











Rothenburg is Germany's best-preserved medieval walled town - according to the guidebook. And the wall is one of the big things to see here.

This is looking down a street toward one of the wall towers. On the right there, next to Don, is a fountain.










The same tower from farther back. Notice the wrought iron shop signs.















Looking at another tower down a different street.
















The wall.












You can walk the entire wall. It was barely tall enough for Don to walk - he had to do a lot of stooping under roof supports.










More of the wall.












These are some of the stairs that provide access to the wall - narrow and steep.















The Rothenburg skyline from the wall.













More skyline. Don loves these German town skylines - a mess of red roof and sky.



























This is a hotel.












This building is outside the walled city. Click on it to see the beautiful blue clock better - the reason for the picture :)










St. Jacob's from the wall, which gives you a good idea of how much renovation was going on on the church.










A road goes right through St. Jacob's.
















St. Jacob's

































The main altar.





























This little organ was sitting on the floor to the side.











But this is the main organ.
















And the big treat in St. Jacob's is hidden up in the organ loft: Tilman Riemenschneider's Altar of the Holy Blood. Riemenschneider is called the Michelangelo of German woodcarvers. He carved this altar from 1499 to 1504. It is 35 feet tall. Our pictures are woefully inadequate.












































































































































Back down on the main floor of the church there are two other altars, carved by students of Riemenschneider.












































Other sights around Rothenburg:


The glass in this old window was green - you can only see that if you click on it. But I inadvertently got a picture of a woman watering flowers. There are flower boxes everywhere.


























The restaurant where we had lunch - outside - before leaving.















I wondered about all the people who lived in town - where did they park their cars? Well, this is a garage that serves numerous residents. There are gargaes like this every so often between the other buildings.








A covered brigde outside the wall.












Rothenburg also is home to the Medieval Crime and Punishment Museum - a fascinating and morbid place. This is just one of the many tortue items on display.









The lane that our room was on. You can drive a car down here, if you are okay with about 2 inches of clearance!










The door to the home where we stayed. The windows on the right are our room.











Our room was very yellow and orange. It was okay - cheery.











The wall says something to the effect that Morning has gold in its mouth. It might be a colloquialism.