We got up a little early today because we wanted to take a walk after breakfast before the town got crazy with tourists. Breakfast was served either in the dining room or in the garden but we chose to stay inside because it was a little cool. They gave us a menu to select from and they had many offerings: all kinds of bread, cheese, meat, and smoked salmon. Also yogurt, cereal, fruit salad and, of course, eggs -- anyway you want them! They had fresh squeezed orange juice and really good tea and coffee. They try to bring you one of everything so you have to be specific about what you really want to eat. Everything was very good! After breakfast we set out to explore.
Rothenburg is a walled city and is still surrounded 3/4 of the way around by a wall which was used to protect the city from invaders. The wall no longer exists where the castle was destroyed by an earthquake in the mid 1300s. There are stairs that take you to the walkway on the top of the wall and you can walk around and see the town from every angle, from above. It was an amazing walk and the views were spectacular. It's about a mile and 1/2 walk. Along the wall there were some fairly new "bricks" or engraved stones in the wall with peoples' names and dates and other information on them. They were interesting to read and see where all the people came from. Later in the day we asked our hotel owner, Uhle, how you can get a brick put in the wall and she said you have to contribute a lot of money to the organization responsible for upkeep of the wall.
We spent the rest of the day walking up and down all the streets and alleyways looking in the many, many shops. Of course we didn't buy anything -- we just looked! There is a fabulous Christmas store there (actually more than one) with ornaments and everything Christmas designed by Kathe Wohlfahrt. We walked through two of the stores and it was almost overwhelming to see everything there that was for sale. I knew I wanted to buy a few things . . . but I decided to wait for another day.
For dinner that night we just opted for Italian, pizza for me while David got penne pasta in an alfredo sauce. We also got another round of good German wheat beer. Germany has turned us into beer lovers -- of German beers, at least.
We went back to our gorgeous hotel to settle in for the night. A few minutes after we climbed into bed we heard someone with a very deep voice telling stories and a crowd of people laughing at him. Turns out it was the "Night Watchman" tour which is conducted there nightly. We did not go on the tour (probably should have) but it sounds like it is a somewhat comical delivery of the history of Rothenburg. We were lucky (!) enough to hear it nightly right outside our window.
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