Rothenburg

On Friday, Steve's work had a family picnic. Zack got his face painted like a tiger. He also ran around with American kids. When the German kids try to talk to him at German parks, he gets confused and sad. It was fun for him to run around with kids who speak the same language.

We left the picnic and drove to Rothenburg. Rothenburg is one of Germany's preserved medieval walled towns. It is a very darling little town. Here we are walking through the gate to get in the city.

All of the houses and building look like this. It is so cute! It is what I pictured when I thought of Germany- cute little A-framed houses all squished together. The house reminded us a lot of the Cuckoo clocks that we saw in the Black forest. The clocks look very similar to many house we saw here. Very darling!

We walked to Market Square. Steve and the boys in front of the Town Hall and in the middle of Market Square.

At the Market Square, we met this guy:

He is the Night Watchman. He gives very comical walking tours of the town as he 'watches' the town. We and a group of about 50 people followed him around while he told us the history of this town and what it was like to live here many years ago. We actually learned a lot. But I'm not witty enough to make it interesting, so I won't bore you. He did take us on the outside of the wall. This is the gate we walked out of. I thought it looked so cute all lit up.

He showed us the hill that the town sits on. It was a breath-taking view.

After the tour, I decided I was going to change my profession. Everyone in the group of 50+ paid the Night Watchman 6 euros. Then he did another tour in German at 9:30. He made over 600 euros in 3 hours and that includes a break between the 2 one hour tours. That is some fast cash!

Anyway, we headed back to our hotel room and tried to sleep. We were reminded how much we miss our AC and our quite neighborhood where there isn't loud drunks laughing at all hours of the night.

In the morning, we headed back in to the walled town.

Our first stop was the Crime and Punshiment Musuem. Zack trying to be just like Daddy. It was really fascinating to see and read all the old punishments. I didn't get to read much because I was chasing Zackary around. But I did read that bakers were put into a cage and dunked under water (and who knows how long they were held under) for not making bread the right size. If the bread weighed 20 ounces when it was supposed to be 15 ounces, they were dunked 5 times. Crazy!!

This is a mask for women who talked too much. I think I have one sister who would have had to wear this. But I'm not going to mention any names.

Zack was fascinated by the big execution swords.
It was really an interesting museum, unlike any I have ever been to.

Next, we visited St. Jakob's Church. The outside was under construction. The main attraction in this church (is that what you call it when it is in a church? It seems like all the churches have some reason to get the tourists inside) is a 500 year old, 35-foot-high wood carving called "Altar of the Holy Blood." On top is Christ on the cross. The center is the Last Supper. On the right is Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. This was the first time I have seen this in a Catholic church. It was amazing!

We walked around the town some more, the shops were so fun, and then headed to the wall. We could walk aropund the whole town on this:

This was the view from the wall:

We really loved Rothenburg. I don't think the pictures above do it justice so I have to include a slide show of a few more pics to help us remember this cute little town.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com