We got to Rothenburg in time to walk around a bit and have dinner. This is one of those fairyland old villages, stunningly beautiful everywhere you look.
The clock in the main square has an hourly animatronic reenactment of a scene in history where the town was besieged and the mayor made a bet with the attackers that if he could chug down 3 or 4 (we heard both) liters of wine they'd go away. He did, and the town was saved. The show was a little underwhelming, but it was fun seeing a bunch of the locals dressed up for their big festival that starts tomorrow. I'm sad we'll miss that.
This is the clock, will upload a photo of the robots later, and maybe a video.
We had a very nice dinner. We all had the white asperagus soup to start. Its definitely in season here - the specials page had many asperagus dishes listed. The stalks I saw in a basket were very thick, much more so than I see at home. Most had Wiener Schnitzel one last time, and I had a steak with spaetzle and a salad. The warm, creamy potato salad on Dad's plate was excellent, as was the local German white wine.
Walked around after dinner and I grabbed us some of the local sweet treat from a bakery, fried Schneeballen (I'm guessing it means "snow balls", unless its "in the style of a skee ball player") some with sugar and cinnamon, some with marzipan. Mmmm.
Some great shops here.
We sat outside at the hotel for a while before bed and chatted with two couples. This being a Rick Steves hotel in a Rick Steves town we were all Americans with a healthy appreciation for the guy.
I got up 45 minutes early to hike around the town before breakfast. Some incredible views. I'd love to come back here for several days. You can easily explore the town in a day but it looks like there could be some great hikes in the area, and plenty of restaurants to keep you entertained.
The breakfast at the hotel was my favorite of the trip. Buffet of meats, cheeses, bread and so forth with a fried egg and coffee, all of it quite good. Not sure how traditional it is to eat a pretzel for breakfast but I hadn't had one yet and they were set out, and I didn't regret it.
Oh, and there's even a WWII tie-in, this time a good story. The German command had ordered the town to be defended to the last man. When the Americans got here they were just rolling through the country with nothing to stop them, and the officer in charge here had been ordered to take the town, which would have meant leveling it. Stone walls may be out of date from a modern warfare perspective, but if you're trying to capture a town with just foot soldiers they still do a great job for the defenders. The war was almost over and the Americans weren't going to risk a bloody battle. But the American commander's mom had lived here early in life and they always had a picture of the place on the wall. He requested a conference with the German commander and told him he really didn't want to level the town but would if he had to. The German commander said give us 24 hours and we'll be gone, and they were.
On the road to Luxemburg.
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