Wanfried/ Taubergrund Bad Mergentheim

Jon and I have a new deal. I plan a trip and drive, and he'll go anywhere. He'll even drive us home. One of the perks of subbing, I'm left with pockets of time to come up with trips. Trip number one, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, mostly because it fell neatly within the day trip range.

Part of our deal means I drive . . . The morning greeted us with a pea soup fog, enough to hide all road signs from any meaningful distance. GPS is good. I did drive fast ...

Today I toured the town of Wurzburg, which is where the often traveled by tourists "Romantic Road" begins. Along with taking an English tour of the city, which ended up being a private tour as I was the only one who signed-up, I took a tour of the Wurzburg Residence, a UNESCO heritage site, which is a baroque palace of prince-bishops.

The Residence took 60 years to build and at one time there were 400 people ...

Today we had a slow walking tour with what looked like Heidi's grandmother. This town was a strongly Jewish town before the war and there are none there now. Rather disturbing. The views were beautiful.

Each day Sheila and I seem to learn a ***********. Today we ...

Guten tag from Germany!

We've been all over Europe, to random places like Bosnia and Slovakia, but we've never managed to make it to Germany. So here we are!

We flew through Iceland, and landed in Frankfurt yesterday. We picked up our very cute Smart Car convertible, and drove out west to the famous Romantic Road. This is a 220 mile long stretch of road running south that is dotted with castles and medieval towns. We stayed the night in ...

We arrived at Miltenberg and I took another walking tour. This town has a lot of the half-timbered buildings and was not damaged in WWII. It has one of the oldest operating hotels in Germany and Elvis Presley stayed there once when he was stationed in Heidelberg. This area of Germany is ...

Got up early again today in order to see a glassblowing demonstration. We’re docked at Wertheim (established in 1170), noted for its glassworks. Besides artistic glass, Johns-Manville has a fiberglass factory and Owens Corning has a fiber optics plant. This is a small town of 6000 with many 13th and 14th century buildings. There is an old castle on the hill but ...

At Bamberg we left the Danube-Main Canal. The canal was completed in 1992 and allows ships to travel from the North Sea to the Black Sea. This connection had been dreamed of since Charlemagne tried digging one in the 8th century. Another attempt was made in the 1800s but the advent of the railroad doomed it. It took 20th century technology to make it possible. The canal itself has 34 locks out of the total of ...

... After failing to get their PC’s Skype to work, and using my limited German and hand gestures, we started over with Erin’s net book, and got the wifi to work.

For dinner we went to the Burgerkeller (no, not a hamburger joint), a quiet restaurant in the cellar of a hotel by the castle garden. We ate early, since we had to pack tonight for our travels tomorrow. It was another good meal. I had pork steak with mushroom sauce and potato cakes, and ...

... area. Great to see her again and share in this part of the upcoming wedding. Hungry, we partaked of some delicious pizza at Vapianos and strolled throughout downtown Stuttgart. Next, we went to Christine's flat in Reutlinger and rested some before driving with Andi (groom-to-be) and Christine to a 60th Birthday Party for Lydia's brother, Friedrich.

50+ people attended this event in ...

... churches, the gardens and the medieval torture museum, our most rememberable event of Rothenburg was a walk with the town night watchman. The night walk was hilarious. The night watchman dressed in a black cape with a lantern, told us the history of Rothenburg and how the locals lived during medieval times. We know this sounds cheesy but it was awesome, he was a excellent story teller, a definite for anyone making it to Rothenburg. Tommorrow we are off to the Rhine River...