Germany--Day 2

We stayed our first night in a town called Rotheburg ob der Tauber.  This is the coolest place.  It is a very well preserved medieval town (think 1700's).  The Nazi's declared Rothenbug to be the "most German of German towns". It was actually bombed during WWII, with minimal damage, but the American Secretary of War knew of its history and beauty and ordered that no artillery be used in taking Rothenburg.   The city and its wall were rebuilt with donations from around the world. 

We began our walk in the city by going up the walls.  I could imagine the villagers getting a call to arms and running from their houses to the walls to defend their city against invaders.  The wall still has the small openings where one would shoot his arrows, throw their rocks, pour the hot oil--or whatever they did back then.  

The walks were narrow, and you could see the red clay shingles through the rafters.  Josh and Jake only got away from us once--and we sent Annie to track them down.  She lectured them enough that when they got back, they stayed with us the rest of the time.

Every time you turned a corner here, you were in for a surprise.  There were archways, or tunnels, or gates to the city, or watchtowers.  This is the main gate.  You can drive your car through here--and we saw a few --but only European size cars for sure.  Don't think my SUV would have fit very well.

A city street in Rothenburg.  Notice all the cute store signs...

And the awesome doors...you could walk the whole city and never see any two alike...

The tables out front of the stores...lots of spring flowers...

mostly planted in window boxes every where.  I would love to see all these again when they were fully in bloom.  

This would have been the moat surrounding the main gates.  

I uploaded this picture by accident and can't get it to delete.  Sorry Ian!!

Can't forget the great Christmas store we went into--I can't imagine how awesome the Christmas market must be in this town...

I kept thinking how great it would be to live here.  Such a slower feel to life in general...ahh, the disappointment, Miranda says that houses in this town haven't sold for hundreds of years--they are all passed down within their families.  Shucks.

Oh, and the great little pizza place we ate at when we came into town late at night--Yumm

And can't forget how great our hotel was.  We stayed right up in the highest level of those cute houses--I opened the window in the morning and we were right level with all the roofs.  Annie said it was the best one we stayed in by far.  

to be continued...