Chapter Fourteen:Rothenburg ob der Tauber

One Saturday in February we road tripped to Rothenburg ob der Tauber (literally Rothenburg over the Tauber--River); the famous, well preserved medieval town just outside of Bavaria. It is quite a gem of a town; quaint and beautiful. It was cold but the sun was shining and we enjoyed just traipsing around and exploring the city walls, shops and streets and lunched at a Turkish café. Phillip, Elizabeth and I climbed the 200 foot town hall tower and enjoyed the skyline view of the town and walls. We all toured through the criminal museum full of medieval instruments of discipline and torture. That made us glad to live in this century! And we went inside of St. Jacobs’s church and saw the famous wood carved altar piece by Tilman Riemenschneider. It was another lovely day spent exploring this country.

While Cory and the little girls sat down in the Marktplatz (Market place) eating treats; the big kids and I climbed the tower steps. Cory had a good laugh at all the cars that drove through. Every car that drove by was an American military-licensed vehicle (you can tell by the license plate) and they had their GPS on taking them to the town center (marktplatz). All the Germans would look at them weird and Cory would just laugh. You aren’t really supposed to drive through the middle of the market square in your car. It’s suppose to be residents only driving in certain areas of the city, but sure enough every person going by him and the girls were dumb Americans following their GPS right into the Market place in the middle of the village!!! We could laugh, because we’ve done dumb things like that too. That’s the one drawback of the navigation systems they don’t tell you whether you should be driving places, just “turn right here, or turn left here.”

Rothenburg is a unique town with its original, medieval wall mostly still intact and thus is usually packed to the brim with tourists. Luckily, our visit was during the slow season just after the busy Christmas holidays and before the influx of tourist in the spring and summer. It was a cold but clear day with great views, blue sky and less crowds. Mariel and Grace had started fighting colds on Friday but since the sun was shining we thought they would be okay exploring in the outdoors for a short time. We tried to take it easy and didn’t start till 10:30am and returned home by 6pm for dinner but we still wore them out. Their colds turned into a croup cough. Both Elizabeth and I ended up with the cold as well. Gracie cried the next night inconsolably for quite some time and finally said she had an “owie in her ear.” Sure enough her cold had turned into an ear infection.