Pictures

I have decided I have a new favorite picture I've ever taken.

This one:

Rothenburg, Germany

Previous favorite picture I've taken:

Venice, Italy

Additional Rothenburg pics

all two of them...

The Romantic Road, Harburg Castle and Rothenburg!

So the next day (after Neuschwanstein Castle) we headed to another tour which went on the Romantic Road to Harburg Castle and Rothenburg. We arrived at the tour on time. Got our seats on a nice double decker bus. Then sat there for an hour. Apparently there was a mishap with the computer on the bus. So they brought us a new bus and we left an hour or so late. But they just extended the tour an hour so we wouldn't miss anything.

Our first stop was Harburg Castle. It is a relatively small castle on top of a hill. It is about 900 years old and still privately owned, which is pretty cool. I want to own a castle! It is extremely well preserved. We went into several of the rooms and into the courtyard. I couldn't hear the tour guide very well because I was in the back but I did learn you can get married in the chapel for 200 Euros and have a reception in the courtyard for 750 Euros. Haha. definitely the most important thing ;-).

After the castle, we drove on the Romantic Road of Germany towards Rothenburg. Which is very romantic.

The drive was very beautiful. We drove through the town of Augsburg and then arrived in Rothenburg. Rothenburg is a small, old medieval town. It's only 1 square mile. and adorable. outisde the walls are a lot of old inns, because people who were not citizens of the town (and I think nobility) had to leave the city walls at night. Basically, Rothenburg is adorable. It has bright colors and is overlooking this big valley. Our first impression of Rothenburg was......STAR WARS

As we were enterting the city, as seen in the video, there was a band playing Star Wars. It was kind of a strange/hilarious first impression of the city.
We learned quite a bit about Rothenburg during our mini-walking tour of the city. 40% of the city was bombed by the US during WWII because the Americans needed to drop the bombs somewhere...so they dropped it on Rothenburg. However, immediately after the war, the US raised money to rebuild the city. Now it looks as though nothing ever happened.
(this is the meat store...)
So we wandered the city, saw a very strange car.

and a giant Nutcracker
(Rothenburg is famous for it's Christmas Shops)

went to look at a view of the city

ate lunch in the main square, which was beautiful and a bit surreal.

though we were right next to Medusa

went to a couple of the churches

mother walked in front of every picture I took

Bought a schneeball (snowball) which is this round cookie filled with a filling of your choice (I chose chocolate) and dipped in something of your choice (I chose hazelnut) which was delicious
Saw the drunken mayor clock...

attempted to see the river that was supposedly in the valley...definitely could not see the river. Mother said it was because it didn't exist...but she said that when we couldn't see Neuschwanstein for a couple minutes either.
Climbed up the wall of the city for a bit.

Then drove back to Munich. More pictures from Rothenburg in next blog post. It won't let me put anymore in this one...
The Next day we took the train to Vienna!