We woke early this morning with the aim of getting a jump on the crowds and to snap a photo of the Plonlein without it being hidden behind seething hoards. Our aim was to have boots on the ground at 7am. At 6:30am, pitch dark. 7:000am, pitch dark. 7:30am, pretty dark. 7:50am, a little light in the sky. So with that, out Katrina and I trundled to nab our photos. We still thought ourselves early, but some other touristen had still beaten us to the punch. Despite the early starters we were able to snap a shot or two, and to be honest it turned out well - it was still dark enough for the christmas lights to be on.
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| The Plonlein just before 8am. |
Our artistic legacy assured, we retired to the hotel and a sizeable breakfast of yummy brotchen and cold meats. And what brotchen! Much fresher than in Nuremberg the day before. And with fresh filtered coffee (not machine!) to boot. Superb! Loving the Alter Keller Guesthouse.
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| A glorious hotel breakfast. |
After breakfast we headed out on the town. We had fewer plans today owing to the fact that we hit so many of our must do's yesterday. The main idea was to get some shopping done, explore the christmas market and just generally take it easy. We began by going back to the Plonlein again, this time with the whole tribe and snapping a family photo with the help of a nice couple from Seattle.
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| Ratbags at the Plonlein. |
It was now 10:30am and the rathaus tower was open! We climbed the upwards of 200 narrowing steps all the way to the top, finally squeezing out onto a tiny observation deck filled with touristen. I stood up, looked down, and immediately freaked out. I was no sooner up and out, than I was headed back down the hole back inside. Everyone else toughed it out and caught some amazing views in the process.
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| Views frim the Rotenburg rathause tower. |
Shopping was now the order of the day - Christmas shopping to be more precise! We joined the throng that was being hearded between the doors of the Kathe Wolfhart Weinachtsdorf and spent a good hour being trampled by decrepid American feebs trying to get their hands on yule-time trinkets. Not that we didn't do a little trinket buying ourselves - we also left the store with quite a few trinkets of our own.
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| Kathe Wolfhart Weinachtsdorf |
Ejected from Kathe Wolfhart's on a gush of warm air full of mid-western twang, we set about exploring the Rothenburg christmas markets before they filled with tour groups. We needn't have worried - there were so few people at the markets this early (around 11:30am) that we could comfortably browse the stalls at our leisure. Feeling a little peckish after our Christmas Wolfhart adventure, we ate some yummy bratwurst and cheese spatzle at the markets before washing it down with red and white gluwein. The white was a new one for us, and something I had been meaning to try since Munich.
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| A break for Bratwurst and Kase Spatzle |
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| Rot vs Weiss Gluwein |
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| Rothenburg Christmas market, gloriously crowd free. |
More shopping in the stores around the main market streets ensued, with us trying (and failing) to find another tea-light german house in the plethora of touristen shops on offer. We're hoping that we might get lucky in the Harz mountains, but things are looking pretty dire on the tea-light house front!
After a little while energies were flagging, so we decided it was time for coffee and with it one of the siganture biscuity treats of Rothenburg - the Schneeball. These are sold in christmas markets all over the country, but we decided to hold off and try them here in their place of origin. Basically, they are a bunch of dough strips all munged together into a ball shape and baked. The dough cooks into a biscuit very similar to an Arnotts lattice biscuit - not exactly puff pastry, but very light. As a fan of Lattice, I really enjoyed the Schneeballs and their light flakey pastry, especially a dark chocolate covered 'Christmas special' that had some kind of gingerbread flvoured goop inside. The powdered sugar variant was also quite good!
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| Schneeballen in their city of origin |
After schneeballs, Eb retired to the hotel to rest - shopping was getting a little much for him. We looked around a few more shops and then decided to take a wander around town again to get a glimpse of some of the streets and buildings we hadn't seen yet. We worked our way south east, down around where we'd finished our wall walk the previous day. The hope was to find a new section of wall that we hadn't seen before. After a few twists and turns we found a new section down towards the south east corner of town with two new, as yet undiscovered towers. Nice!
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| Stooberlein Turm on the south eastern wall section |
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| Sauturm at the very end of the wall section |
The ramparts were duly stalked, and after a day on our feet our legs were starting to complain. So, we too adjourned for a rest in the hotel before dinner.
Dinner was another awesome bavarian meal at the Rothenburg Ratstube - right on the main square. We managed to book a table in the cellar, which was adorned with armour and weapons from bygone times. Trout, salmon and Sweinshaxe were duly consumed, along with a hearty helping of Hefeweizen. This time it was a repeat of the most excellent Tucher Hefeweizen from previous nights (no new beers to report) but we were so happy Eb and I easily downed a litre before finishing dinner.
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| Dinner in the cellar of the Rothenburg Ratsstube |
After dinner we were just in time to catch the most excellent "Night Watchman" Tour of Rothenburg. The host, Hans Georg Baumgartner was a captivating speaker and kept us enthralled with tales of Rothenburg's history. Most interesting were stories of the 30 years war, as well as the Nazi surrender and retreat from the town, saving it from total destruction during WWII. An absolutely amazing end to our visit to this truly amazing town.
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| Hans Georg Baumgartner, the captivating Rothenburg Night Watchman. |
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