Christmas in October?

Today was a lovely day of relaxing and some exploring in Rothenburg.  We started off the day with an early morning stroll, as we have found this to be the best way to get pictures of the area (since there aren't other people around blocking your view!).

Believe it or not, Medieval towns are pretty similar to what we see in the movies...they typically feature a "town wall" that surrounds the town to protect it from any non-citizens.  Last night on the Night Watchman's tour, we found out that it was quite an ordeal to be out after curfew, because one could find themselves literally locked out of the town!  Night watchmen would guard the gates of entry to the town, which typically featured giant heavy doors.  If you were out after curfew and wanted to be let in, the night watchmen would charge a premium to open the smaller door or "man-hole."  Today we had the chance to walk along the top of the town wall in Rothenburg!  It afforded some beautiful views across the town...

A picture of the wall itself (or a section of it)

Steps leading up to walking on the wall...the wall itself is over 1.5 miles long surrounding the town.

After nearly freezing to death on the wall walk (it's been below freezing here at night, and for some reason Kim didn't think she needed a jacket this morning...), we headed back to the hotel to thaw out to eat breakfast and get ready for the day ahead.   First thing on the agenda for today was a stop at the town's famous Christmas Museum.  We know, it's only October, but this thing is actually pretty interesting, and the shop inside is INSANE!  Even Matt thought it was pretty impressive.  The decorations they sell here are pretty tasteful and traditional ornaments (although they of course have the gaudy ones too).  The museum was interesting and we learned a lot about the origins of the Christmas traditions we have today...apparently the Christmas tree was not universally associated with the holiday until the Franco-Prussian War when soldiers would receive small decorated trees from back home at Christmas-time (which spread the trend to others).

Kim was in love!

We decided to return later for some shopping, as the crowds inside the shop were insane!  Next we set off on a self-guided walking tour of the town.  Like the other tours we have done, it touched on all the major sites in the (small) town.  It of course included a visit to the town's old church, St. Jacob's.  St. Jacob's is most famous for a 500 year old 35 foot high wood carving, Altar of the Holy Blood.  In a word, it was incredible.  The details on this altar were amazing, especially when you consider that it is 500 years old!  Apparently this guy (Tilman Riemenschneider) had a lot of free time on his hands, as this is just one of the altars such as this that he created!  

We of course also took some other pictures along the way...

The town hall.

The main Market Square.

A view from outside the wall, looking back on the town.

Shortly after this last picture was taken, Matt decided to jump up on the wall in the castle garden to take some more photos.  Unfortunately...

...he dropped the camera from the top of the wall above to the cement path below!!!  Luckily, the camera survived relatively unscathed, save a few scratches.  It still seems to function perfectly however (luckily for Matt...haha).  

After a quick lunch, we ventured outside the town walls to do some more exploring/hiking of the surrounding countryside, which was quite picturesque with the leaves changing colors for Fall!

In the castle gardens.

Matt inside the bridge!

Beautiful (and locked) church just outside the wall.

We figured at this point (about 5 PM) that the crowds surely must be dying down at the Christmas shop, so we headed back that way to make a couple of purchases.  We found an awesome ornament that is a hand-painted landscape of the town which actually contains our hotel in it, so we decided it was a must-have...now we only have to wait two months to see it again (haha), assuming that it makes it back to the US in one piece!  

The rest of the evening was pretty leisurely, with dinner at Cafe Roma (again)...the only vegetarian-friendly place in town, and dessert (gelato) at a cafe down the street.  Kim tried yet another "local" drink (from Italy), red wine mixed with cola.

It sounds totally bizarre, but it actually tasted a lot like grape soda.  The only danger with these mixed drinks is that they go down really easily!  Perhaps we will have to try them out when we are back in the US sometime!  Tomorrow we are off to Freiburg, which is in the southwest corner of Germany.  It is a bit of a college town, which will be fun for us.  The next few days will be spent exploring the Black Forest, which will be AWESOME, and quite the change from the "city-scapes" of Munich and Prague.  Looking forward to the rest of the trip!

Gute Nacht (from Rothenburg)!

Love,
Matt and Kim