Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany

Rothenburg ob der Tauber, one of Rick Steves favorite German cities, was pretty even on a cold winter day!  In which I forgot my hat. And Todd let me borrow his, which then he didn't have one.  Ain't he the greatest!? 

In typical Bailey fashion, we didn't get there until almost 11 (and it's only about an hour and a half away).  Rothenburg is on the edge of western Bavaria, near the border with Baden-Württemberg.  It's a walled city, and although it was founded in 1170, people had settled here several hundreds of years prior to that.  It's full of half timber buildings and the wall that surrounds the city is walkable with some great views.

 We went immediately to the Marktplatz and were greeted with the fun little Meistertrunk display which happens on the top of the hour.  (Well timed for once, Baileys!)  I love the story behind this guy who drinks his wine every hour.  Travelsignposts.com tells the story well:  "The setting is the Thirty Years’ War and after some bitter fighting, the Catholic imperial troops under Count Tilly had just taken control of Protestant Rothenburg. The town folk of Rothenburg did not give in easily and Count Tilly was enraged by their violent resistance. He gave orders for the town to be plundered and destroyed and for four of the town Councillors to be executed. Pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears and the Mayor was ordered to fetch the hangman.  Meanwhile, the count was offered the finest of Franconian wine served in a huge tankard which holds 3.25 liters. In jest, he promised to spare the town if one of its Councillors could down a full tankard of wine in one go. A former mayor, Bürgermeister Nusch took up the challenge and amazed Tilly by draining the tankard in ten minutes. Tilly kept his promise to spare the town, the folks of Rothenburg were jubilant and Mayor Nusch was said to have slept for the next three days."  So every hour, on the top of the hour, we all get to relive Mayor Nusch, drinking his 3.25 liters!

A treat that is popular in Rothenburg is something known as the Schneeball (Or snowball, in English).  Rick Steves wasn't a fan of this, but we all certainly liked it.  It's a round, very dry, kind of hard crunchy pastry that is covered in your choice of topping.  The traditional ones are covered in powdered sugar (hence the name schneeball), but you can get them covered in chocolate, nuts, or even with a bit of filling (I chose one with a vanilla filling).  They were pretty good, but it literally took us all day to eat them!  VERY messy too.  NOT for eating in the car or around hungry pigeons.

Natalie, Grant and I ate our schneeballs on the steps of the town hall!

Next we walked around the town, enjoying the architecture of the half timbered wood frame homes and buildings.   

  

We walked over to the Burggarten (or the Castle Garden) on the west side of Rothenburg.  This is looking southeast toward the southern section of Rothenburg.  You can see the Kobolzeller Church just behind the tree in the center.  There are some amazing views from up here, but it was very windy and cold, so we didn't spend too much time here (I will say it again- this is another town that will be so much fun to visit when it gets warmer!)

There's a small church (which wasn't open) called the Chapel of St. Blaise located in the Castle Gardens, with a memorial stone out front dedicated to the first mass murder of the Jews in Rothenburg in 1298.  They were burned to death by a group of angry residents.  There was an earthquake here in 1356, and while every other building in Staufer Castle (which had been located here) was destroyed, this building was renovated and turned into a church.  So basically it's a castle garden without a castle!

At the Burgator (or Castle Gate) entrance to the gate on the west side of the town, near the Burggarten.

 Walking back down the Herngasse toward the Marktplatz. I just love these buildings!

I had read some good things about the Deutches Weihnachtmuseum (basically a museum about this history of Christmas ornaments!) so we decided to swing in to get out of the cold for a bit.

Todd loves any kind of insanely creepy doll head Christmas ornament. Quite frankly, I'm surprised he didn't buy this.

And of course, we had to have a late lunch and play a game of Spot It! The inscription on the wall behind Natalie talks of Mayor Heinrich Toppler who was mayor between 1373 and 1408. I translated it to say (literally word for word): "Him the common man so nicely that when he him 30 or 40 citizens accompanied by the church came."   Toppler was a common man (as in he was not of the nobility) but he was wealthy and many considered him the "King of Rothenburg."

A Crime and Punishment museum right after lunch?  OK!  We got there right when it opened, as it's only open for a few hours in the afternoon on Saturday's in the winter.  I like to go to places like this with my kids and tell them I'm going to use these weird devices on them if they act up!

Sorry Todd.  You can't go any farther.  You're too tall for 1576.

Hey look!  It's a real Iron Maiden!  Yikes!  Hashtag not the band.

Please excuse me for being in the background of this picture.  Grant was just a wee bit short!  

Colorful buildings of Rothenberg. 

Todd in front of the most famous building in Rothenburg, the Plönlein.  The website Tourismus.rothenburg.de, says, "A narrow half-timbered building with a small fountain in front, it is framed by the Kobolzeller tower and the higher Siebers Tower, with lovingly restored townhouses to the right and left, creating a charmingly picturesque effect.The word “Plönlein” derives from the Latin “planum” meaning “flat square. 

In order to get back to our car, which was on the north side of the town, we decided to walk along the fortified medieval wall.  This is the view of the Kobolzeller Tower.  

Heading south along the wall (we went the wrong way!!)  You can literally look into the windows of people's homes or into their backyards.

 I spotted a couple of cuties along the medieval wall!  

On our way back, we had to get off of the wall at one point since we went the wrong way.  But thankfully we did because we spotted this really neat covered bridge! 

 

We finally made our way back to the wall near the Rödertor.  We also got to climb (for a small fee) Röder Tower which provided great views of Rothenburg.  I highly recommend climbing this tower, since there is a super friendly guy who takes the fee at the top (SUPER chatty, loves kids and does this as a volunteer job) and a great display about the bombing of Rothenburg during WWII.  While about 40% of the city was destroyed, the US Assistant Secretary of Defense wanted to spare Rothenburg, so he (through passed-down orders to the soldiers) cut a deal with the local military leader (who ignored orders from Hitler himself to defense the city at all cost!) and the city was mostly spared.  Job well done on preserving history, guys!  The city was quickly repaired using donations from all over the world.  Little plaques along the wall show all of the donatees and where they were from.

 Looking more north from the Röder Tower, you can really see the wall here!  Not long after as we got to our car, it started raining!  Until next time, Rothenberg!

A Recent Grant-ism

You know my 6-year-old is the funniest kid ever.  And he never makes sense and always leaves us scratching our heads or wondering if we had too much to drink.  Here was his recent joke, that he made up:

Grant:  Natalie, what's cheeseburger plus A?

Natalie:  I don't know... A cheeseburger?

Grant:  Noooo! (Laughing) It's EYEBALL!!!!!!!

Technik Museum Spyer, Germany

We pretty much found Mecca for Grant today.

The Technik Museum Speyer (located in Speyer, German, located about a half hour south of Mannheim, is one of two Technik Museums in southern German that feature all things transportation, and then some.

 We went into the museum and we were greeted by...Nascar?  A Skoal Bandit?  What is going on here!?

 

But first things first.  We NEED to check out the retired Lufthansa 747.  Stat.  Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. 

It's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. 

Once inside the Lufthansa 747, some of it is cordoned off behind glass with all of the original seating and mannequins posing as flight attendants and passengers.

What the... is this for real?  Only in Germany can your son get a HUGE kick out of the fact that there's a male mannequin sitting on the toilet doing a number two.  While reading a newspaper.

Grant feels more at home in first class than back by the guy taking a dump in coach.

Natalie and Todd went out on the wing of the 747 - very brave!

 I don't know what kind of face Grant is making here (cause it kind of looks like he's crying, but I know he wasn't), but here we are visiting the neighbor to the 747, the Lufthansa Vickers Viscount!

The first thing Grant said when we walked onto this plane was that it smelled like a barn.  Nice.

MOM!  Remember these, but Delta style!?  I love that they kept them here in the retired aircraft.  I used to LOVE it when my mom brought home these flight schedule books from her job at Delta Air Lines.

Afterward, we were pretty cold, so we decided to go inside of the second hangar to check out some more cool stuff.  THIS Aston Martin is ****VERY BRITISH.***

 Our next stop brought us to a Russian version of the Space Shuttle.  I always knew the space shuttle was small, since it fits on the back of a 747 and I know how big those are.  But seeing it in the hanger made it seem bigger!  This is the space shuttle Buran, which the musuem website says, "The BURAN prototype OK-GLI shown in the museum was built in 1984 and was used for testing gliding flight and landing after reentry into the atmosphere."

 

The cockpit of an actual space shuttle! It blows my mind that people are smart enough to know what ALL of those little buttons do!

The cargo bay was open for us to see what it looked like inside.  Even though the space shuttle looked pretty huge in this hangar, compared to the vastness of space, we know how small it really is.

Actual moon rock!  It's 3.34 billion years old.  That's all.

Next we went upstairs to see the bicycle and motorcycle display, as well as model railroad exhibit.  This picture above is funny because not long before this picture was taken, I had an oil change at a VW dealership in Weiden, Germany.  Prior to arriving, I had stopped at the PX for some Makers Mark (I think it's well established how much I love Makers Mark).  The guy at the VW dealership went into my Jetta glove compartment to see if I had certain paperwork he was looking for and when he glanced at the floor and saw my bottles of Makers Mark, he said, "Oh, did you bring your own oil?"  (Which is something Germans sometimes do).  Nope, sir.  That's just Makers Mark bourbon!  That story was funny in and of itself.  Until we saw this picture and realized that oil bottles sometimes look EXACTLY like bourbon bottles!

 

We put  €1 in and turned on the train.  This was legitimately the most bizarre train track I've ever seen.  First... let's have the train drive beneath a German Chocolate Cake, or to use the more local term, a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte.  Sure.  That makes sense.

 

There were many weird American character in this model railroad.  I know you're thinking, hey that's cool.  It's Sesame Street.  But wait!  What does that say?  Ernie ist dooof?  What does that mean?  Well, translated, that means, "Ernie sucks!"  What?  Really?  Really Technik Museum Speyer?  Meanwhile, please don't miss the prince and the princess under the central bridge.  And of course, to our left, Alf.  On a couch.  With a sash that says, "No Problem."  Sitting next a cat.  Which if you recall, he likes to eat.  This is all very disturbing.

The Russian space shuttle in full scale. Thank goodness for some normalcy.

SKYLAB!  Probably only Cory Swales will get this joke.... It is literally the only reason I took this picture!

Back in the summer of 1997, when I was interning at WFLA in my hometown of Tampa, Florida, one of my good friends from Auburn, Beth Linteris (at the time, she's married now!) came down to Cape Canaveral to watch her uncle Greg Linteris on his second space mission as a payload specialist on the Space Shuttle Columbia (which we know in 2003 disintegrated upon reentry, killing 7 astronauts). I was fortunate to sit with her in the family section at the Cape, which is the closest any human can get to the actual launch. I remember you can actually FEEL the launch.  You can see the ripples over the lake from the sound waves...and then you can feel them!  It was incredible.  STS-94 holds a special place in my heart. It was neat to be in Germany and see a little memento from that!

The next stop was the Russian Antonov 22.  It's the worlds largest turboprop, and was used as military transport for Russia.  Above is the interior of the aircraft.  Not super exciting because again, it was used as military transport.  But it's still pretty impressive that props can fly this plane!

 This shows the scale of this plane.  Todd and the kids are beneath the far right prop.  It's an impressive aircraft!

 On our way to our last stop, which was a couple of aircraft near the front of the first hangar, we saw this.  A piece of the Berlin Wall!  How interesting that we found it in the Rhineland Palatinate, which is pretty darn far from Berlin!  I appreciate that all of Germany shares this history.

 Heading over to the other aircraft, we had one last pass under of the Lufthansa Boeing 747!

 

Hi Nat!  That's a Boeing 747 above your head!

  

Two more planes to explore?  Yes please!

 

Here's Natalie in the first aircraft (which in the picture above this one, is the one with the red stripe down the middle. It's an Antonov AN-26) Once again, the Germans (or the Russians?) have stumped me with their strange dioramas.  In this picture, we have a mannequin to the left reading some literature about Lenin and Stalin, and on the right we have a man taking a nap with some strange deer antlers and a fallen picture of a man above him! 

 

Meanwhile, this aircraft also had a car in the back of it!

 

Ok, hopefully the Air Inter is a little less confusing. 

 

But first, let us appreciate the pigeon and all of the bird poop on the wing of the Air Inter in front of the Technik Museum Speyer.

Air Inter was okay but you could really only go in about this far and you couldn't walk around the airplane.

But they had the entire plane still intact and you could see it from the front of the cabin.

 

Last but not least, we have a little bit of Nazi history.  The airplane on top is a model of one that the Red Baron flew.  And of course, we have Nazi unforms on display which Grant is checking out.

If you have children, or even if you don't... this is an incredible museum.  I'm really looking forward to visiting the other Technik Museum in Sinsheim soon!