2020 - Day 12: Rothenburg ob der Tauber

The summation of today is it can be Christmas every day in Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

We started the day with a breakfast in a box delivered to our hotel room since the NH hotel we have stayed in the last two nights is not doing buffet breakfast due to Covid-19 regulations. This is a nice idea but in practise with boxes being standardised it results in so much food and packaging waste it is a little depressing. After a busy couple of days we kept it relaxed this morning and decided not to go explore the local Fürth area so after loading up the car we headed off to today's destination of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, an hours drive away.

We had originally booked a hotel in the centre of the old town but after rejigging our schedule when the holiday changed from Austria to Germany there had been limited availability so had ended up a bit further out. This did however mean we had a dedicated carpark and actually was only a 10minute walk to the walls of the old town so it wasn't really a problem at all.

Even with the lazy start to the day the kids were still a bit tired and whingy today and so first stop was to try and find something for lunch. Having read about a local speciality, Schneeballen (Snowballs) we decided to check these out and quickly found the store, Diller's Schneeballen, that was recommended in my Lonely Planet book. They were described as "ribbons of dough loosely shaped into balls, deep-fried then coated in icing sugar, chocolate and other dentist's foes" and Diller's has over 20 different flavours to choose from. I chose original, Matt dark chocolate and nougat, Forrest chocolate and nut and Paloma cinnamon. They were all disappointing! Basically dry shortcrut pastry strips wrapped into a dense ball. Paloma's cinnamon one was probably the most edible with flavour in the pastry itself but the rest tasted like something you made with left over bits of shortcrust pastry that then overcook because they are smaller than the main items you are baking. And our opinion was not alone as we then started noticing that every bin we passed for the rest of the day had half eaten Schneeballen discarded in them.

Schneeballen.

At least one of us liked the snowballs.

The kids loved the bubble blowing bear!

Matt in the Marktplatz.

Onwards to the next Rothenburg speciality which is Christmas. Known as Germany’s Christmas capital due in part to it's large Christmas Market during December it is also home to the Käthe Wohlfahrt’s Christmas Museum. However, due to Covid-19 this is currently shut but we still had a browse round the Christmas Village. Käthe Wohlfahrt’s is a family run company that opened the first specialty shop for Christmas items in Rothenburg ob de Tauber in 1977 and the village at first seems small but is a neverending display of Christmas items for sale. Just when you think you have seen them all there is another twist and a new area of Christmas goodies opens up infront of you. The prices of most items made our eyes water but we let the kids pick a couple of the smaller wooden decorations for our tree come Christmas time. Whilst the kids loved it, especially the ginormous decorated tree in the middle of the shop, it was a tad stressful at times with both of them wanting to touch everything! Paloma eventually needed to be carried to prevent her wanting to buy half the shop.

Christmas Village Display.

Back outside and we decided to head up to the Burggarten (castle gardens). Now this name is a bit of a misnomer as there hasn't been a castle on site since 1356, but it is a pretty space with good views of the local countryside and back towards the town itself. The kids by this point were being extremely hard work arguing over who got to hold Mama's hand (and no, holding one hand each was NOT a good enough solution) and Paloma deciding to play "mind the bear cracks" (avoiding the cracks in the pavement) on old cobbled streets so progress was extremely slow. A sit down in the garden (once we finally got there) and a good idea from Matt to distract them with their vTech cameras did the trick and order to a degree was restored. In hindsight this probably was the better option than my suggestion of a visit to the Kriminalmuseum to check out the many medieval instruments of punishment.

One of Forrest's photos.

Statues in the Castle Garden.

View of the town from the Castle Gardens.

We then took the Tower Trail from the castle garden back to Röder Tower and Gate which was where we had originally entered the old town, taking a short cut to check out one of the famous sights of the town, the Plönlein. The final stretch of the walk was up on the ramparts of the old walls and for once after a couple of warnings to stay on the safe side the kids were pretty well behaved so an ice cream and visit to the local play park was in order on our descent.

The kids were impressed by the size of the door!

The Plönlein.

Up on the ramparts of the wall.

Up on the ramparts of the wall.

We ended up choosing to go to Rothenburg ob der Tauber today because a. it is a very pretty town but also b. all the museums in Nuremberg (and Germany in general) were shut on a Monday. What we hadn't realised was that this also applied to many restaurants too but a quick Google and a wander we found the Goldener Greifen which had an outside biergarten and a great traditional German menu including a nice selection for the kids. Having two kids that don't eat chips, or potato of any sort reallly, can be pretty limiting on restaurant kids meals but we have discovered on this holiday that Paloma will now eat crinkle cut chips (we will keep working on other shapes) and Forrest was brave and tried a Kartoffelklöße (potato dumpling) with his sausage today and that went down well too.

Marktplatz.

Ominous clouds that fortunately passed.

Arguments over who gets to hold cub!

Tomorrow is another short drive first thing to reach our next destination, Technik Museum Speyer, where Matt will be in his element with transportion devices by the bucketload.

Blogged by Amber.