Ahhh… Germany!

June 10

This morning we woke up to the sound of a lot of bells ringing loudly. As it turns out, the local ranchers were herding their cows up the street. Each cow had a gigantic bell hanging around its neck. Even just a herd of 5 cows made a lot of noise, but the herds of 20 or so were even louder. It was exciting to watch them slowly walk up the street following the lead cow. There were probably about 5 herds that came up the street, maybe more before we woke up, but that’s not something you see every day.

After we ate breakfast, I went up to the internet café to post to my blog. It was beautiful. I sat typing on my computer in the cool, crisp mountain air, watching the fog slowly lift off the valley below. The sun was just coming up over the snowy peaks and shining on the waterfalls making them sparkle. I watched all the backpackers walk by, headed to various destinations.

When I had finished blogging and enjoying the beautiful morning, I walked back to the hotel and we packed up and headed out of town. We stopped at the bäckerei to get some rolls and meat for our lunch later on today.

The drive out to Rothenburg was quite long, well, about 5 hours. Unfortunately there weren’t a lot of scenic views because the autobahn has trees and walls all along it.

We made it to Rothenburg around 2:45 and parked just outside the wall of the city. We made it into the market or central part of the city just in time to see the last glockenspiel of the day. It wasn’t as exciting as we thought, there were just two guys drinking beer on either side of the clock, but still better than closed windows.

The city was quite impressive. The architecture reminded me a little bit of Brugge, with the stair step roofs. The buildings were all bright colors and some of them were a little crooked or misshapen.

The most famous view of the city is of this tower with the clock. It was a really neat little street with some great shops. Brianna and I both bought hats at a little shop near the tower.

Also on these streets, all the signs stick out from the street and are ornate and beautiful. It is interesting to see the different ideas people come up with for their sign. I took pictures of quite a few of them which totaled about 35.

Rothenburg is surrounded by a huge wall. We were able to walk along a lot of it at the lower end of the city. Every once in a while there was a window or slit where we could look out. The view on one side was looking back on the city. It was amazing to see.

After walking along the wall for a while we went back down into the city and did some more shopping. One of the shops we went into was a famous Christmas shop. The decorations and ornaments in there were incredible! There were two floors that just had decorations and ornaments and then another floor that had a museum, which we didn’t go into. The store was very impressive.

We had dinner in Rothenburg at a little shop along the street. I had a typical German meal of Wienerschnitzel with lemon juice and fries. My dad hat bratwurst and sauerkraut, and my mom and Brianna had hamburgers. It was fun because I got to order in German, although the waiter did understand a very little English.

After we ate, we walked back to our car and then took a 2 ½ hour drive to our hotel in München. We’ll be staying in this hotel for our last three nights here and just taking day trips out to the various places we will be visiting. A few minutes after we got up to our room in the hotel they brought up a little treat to welcome us to München. It was delicious!