Place: Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Bayern, Deutschland
Days spent: 28.-30. Oct. 2010 (3 days)

B. and I arrived late in Rothenburg on Thursday the 28th, as we had decided last minute not to visit Heidelberg, due to the expensive price of the train ticket.  Aside from Horn in Schwangau, I had never been to a town that was as quiet as Rothenburg around 10pm. It was too quiet and there was not a bar in sight!  As I’ve never been good with darkness, I kept imagining all sorts of hauntings around this old medieval town.

The next day, we toured Rothenburg on our own. We had meant to visit the main attractions first before wandering to the different boutiques and exploring the perimeters.  But we ended up wandering from boutique to boutique and eventually wandered around the city wall.  By the time we reached the tower (5 stories high?), I learned that Rothenburg had in fact been bombed (like Dresden, it was to catch Hitler’s attention and not because it was an industrial target) during WWII and that many of the historic buildings were only half “original”, including the city walls.  I am glad they decided to restore their town to its former glory.  It certainly helped with all the donations from around Germany, Japan, China and the USA.
Although we had seen the entire city by the afternoon, we decided to stay another night to see more attractions the next day. The owner of the bed & breakfast we stayed at turned out to be a tourist shop owner as well, and told us he was going to visit Canada next year.

On our last day in Rothenburg, we thought we’d leave for Munich after lunch. Well, “after lunch” turned out to be around 5pm.  We did, however, get to see the insides of some churches, and even visited the Rathaus museum, which focused on the 30 Years War.  The dungeon, which had served as an air raid shelter during WWII, had 3 prison cells, one of which (the closest to the window) jailed the famous mayor Toppler (whose enemies were jealous of him and had thrown him into prison). I was too terrified to go anywhere near the prison cells, so I had B. describe everything to me. It just has to be haunted!

Before I left, I bought my souvenir from Rothenburg: miniature wooden carvings! One, which “represents” Rothenburg, is of the Nachtwacher (Night watchman), and the other is a bird – which represents me!  Had I the money, I would have bought more items! All of the creations have been hand carved (by the husband) and hand painted (by the wife). The Frau (wife) told me that she and her husband had been doing this for over 30 years!

One day, I shall visit Rothenburg again! 🙂