September 6, 2015

September 6, 2015

I really liked Nuremberg.  It is a nice town, with some interesting tourist sites, but is not jam packed with visitors like most have been.  We walked to the train station, bought our ticket and then I got Aimee her favorite breakfast, a big cup of coffee and a chocolate croissant.

We took the train an hour west to the little town of  Rothenburg ob der Tauber.  The second part of the name means "on the Tauber River" to distinguish it from the other couple Rothenburgs in Germany.  As we approached the first gate of this old walled city, I felt transported back to the Middle Ages (it wasn’t just the cobblestones our roller luggage were bumping on).  The double tower gate looks so authentic. And to our right in the grassy moat are dozens of tents with people in Medieval Era attire.  Turns out we are coming to the best preserved town in all of Germany during their annual Fall Festival when the city celebrates its history.

After dropping off our bags at the hotel, we return to the encampment.  It reminds me of the Renaissance Faires at home but much better. No hokey sword fights.  These re-enactors are camping for real in medieval tents, living totally in the period.

We re-enter the city and walk toward the main Market Square.  We pass more people in period costume.  The central plaza is a hubbub of activity, with groups playing music and singing.

Since it is a very chilly morning, we duck indoors at St Jakob’s  Cathedral.  When it turned Protestant most of the ornamentation was removed during the Purge.  A couple historic wooden altar pieces of exquisite detail survived.

The festival activities are scattered throughout the small City, so we repeatedly walk from the central Market Plaza to the City Wall, along the ramparts, and then back to the Center.  The medieval entertainment includes music and dancing,  historic firemen, oompah bands, lots of crafts (rope making, basket weaving, blacksmiths and wood carvers), and delightful trials of scofflaws, one of which gets punished in a dunking basket.

The walk down the City Wall was cool.  The city is still totally surrounded by a tall wall with thirty towers connected by an inside passage for the defenders.  I had to keep an eye on my head because of the low wood beams.  The walls are so well preserved they could easily be a set for a movie.

At noon, we stumbled upon an old monastery serving beer and brats for lunch.  We ate outside on a terrace overlooking the steep Tauber River valley.  Below we can see an old stone arch bridge crossing the river.

In another direction our strolling took us out a city gate into the Castle Garden.  This narrow green section is where the old long-gone medieval castle stood.  It sat on the steepest part where the river made a sharp bend.  The ideal spot for a fort.  Later the castle walls were extended to protect a small town. Those gates and a few wall sections still exist.  Later the town walls were expanded again to protect a larger town.  The fact you can still recognize the growth over time is the hallmark of a preserved city.

We next toured the Crime and Punishment Museum.  It turned out to be a bore.  It had lots of the paraphernalia of torture (dozens of Executioner Axes and just as many iron Shame Masks), but you can't look at it too much.  Clearly the Middle Ages was a cruel time.  The museum also had lots of written archives on crime and justice but they were hard to study when we both just wanted to go back outside to the fun.

We had dinner at a popular restaurant on the central Market Plaza.  At 8 pm we went on the highly recommended Nightwatchman's Tour.  It is led by a costumed guy who pulls you back into the Middle Ages.  He interwove the history of the town and Medieval life with great humor.  The hour was over in a blink of an eye.  Never have we learned history so easily.  Being on the intersection of two great trade routes, Rothenburg was one of the largest and wealthiest cities of the Middle Ages.  The population was decimated in the religious battles of the Thirty Years War and laid dormant waiting for tourism to bring it back to life. Interestingly it was almost destroyed in WWII because a Nazi General hid out here.  But saved by an American general who remembered his mother touring the city and loving it.

When we finally get back to our room, we are exhausted from this full day of fun.  Too bad since this is our nicest room, huge with a canopy bed, and sitting area.