Rothenburg, A Walled Medieval City

Rothenburg is a 12th century Medieval town with a defensive wall around it.  It was around a 2 1/2 hour drive.  We arrived about at lunch time and sat in the back of a restaurant that had ceiling fans, but did not have them on.  It was not a particularly hot day, however, the restaurant was warm from cooking.  I will never understand why Europeans hate fans so much.

After lunch we split up into girls and boys (with Bob joining the girls).  The girls went shopping, and the men, with boys in tow, went to sample some locally brewed beer.  We went to the Kathe Wolfhart Christmas stores.  

After we met up again, we walked the wall.  You go up the stairs and actually walk in the middle of the wall.  It's really narrow in places, so another group coming the other way was tricky at times.  There were wider places, towers, "windows," and bridges along the way.  We only went around a section of it because it is several miles long altogether.  We came across two ladies that were singing so beautifully together.  The kids were always running ahead and the adults were bringing up the rear.

Oh, and there were canons, of course!

The clock that had two mechanical puppet men drinking beer in the windows on the hour.

After the long walk, the kids needed a gelato break.  For some reason we didn't get any pictures of it, but we first stopped to try the regional favorite, Schneeballen (translation= Snow Balls.)  This is similar to a donut, I guess, but the fried ball is layers of dough all crinkled into a ball and then dipped in various toppings.  They are made up fresh everyday, but they are not soft and squishy like fresh donuts.  Hard to explain, but it's an experience worth having.

Then we went straight to a coffee and gelato shop and sat outside.  Everyone who wanted some shared a big fancy gelato or had their own smaller gelato to themselves.  After this break we had a little time to kill before the Nightwatchman Tour.  

The Nightwatchman Tour was amazing.  Brian had been before, but I stayed back at the hotel with the little ones for bedtime.  It begins pretty late, at 8pm, and I wasn't brave enough the last time we were here when Isaac was a baby and all my kids were little.  We hesitated to stay for it at first because it is so late with such a long drive home ahead of us.  We were glad we did in the end.  The man that does this tour is very entertaining and full of stories about the city.  We walked around following him and he would stop now and then to tell us those stories before moving on to the next spot.

We ended up just feeding the kids whatever we could find in the van on the drive home.  The adults were not too hungry, but the ever-ravenous children finished every last drop of food on the way home.