Last nights early night didnt quite go to plan, after a few drinks in the lounge in the hotel we decided to go out for a walk and see if we could find ‘something snacky’ for dinner, we were not particularly successful, but did find a bar that did really nice French Onion Soup so we went in there and had a couple of drinks and some soup, what we hadn’t realised is that this is where the Roundheads and Caviler’s were about to congregate, we haven’t actually found out who they are but while sitting having a drink and our soup, suddenly the marching band appeared and marched through the bar to the centre and started playing. I don’t think it was the same lot as we had seen in the bar earlier but it could have been, anyway it was all very spectacular, if a little loud! They must have played for about 15 minutes and once they stopped just as we were enjoying talking to each other again another lot came in and did the same again! It was actually a really nice end to the evening but we were probably sitting a little close so it was rather loud, anyway we got back to the hotel just before 10:00, we knew that as that is when they lock the door, and went up to bed hoping that the weather will hold for us tomorrow.
Unfortunately the weather gods were not kind to us, we knew the forecast was for rain but we rather hoped that it would be wrong, so after a very relaxed breakfast we piled on the waterproof layers, hoped for the best and set off. We have two walks for our time here, the first which we had planned to do today was around the old town, and the second is around the city wall. From our hotel we walked up the road to the Market Square, King Conrad III built his royal castle in Rothenburg in 1142, and a village soo grew up around it, traders quickly started selling their goods and the market square was born. The market became official in 1172 and at this time the main square became the centre of both trade and social life in the town. The village grew to become the 2nd largest city in Germany by the 1400’s second only to Cologne, due to the fact it sat on two medieval trade routes. Dominating the square is the Council Drinking Hall, this was once an exclusive tavern that could only be entered by city council members. In order to be on the city council you had to be born into a noble-class family, today it is home to the tourist information and some very nice clocks. The first is a ‘modern’ clock installed in 1638, a calendar date clock and a sundial which was actually installed after the modern clock in 1768 all of which are above the black double eagle coat of arms from the Holy Roman Empire. The guidebook talked about a special show that takes place every hour between 10 am and 10 pm, this was described as ‘The small windows flanking the sides of the clock open to reveal hidden mechanical figures who re-enact a famous story from Rothenburg’s history’ In reality what happens is 2 windows open and you can see two figures who I don’t think actually move anymore! To the left of this building is the old town hall which burnt down a number of times during its history, the current building is from 1681, however at the back there is the the tower which is all that remains of the Gothic town hall. The tower is 179 feet tall and provided a means of communicating with the city watchtowers, it has 220 steps and you should be able to climb it but due to the rain today we think they have closed it and to be honest even if they haven’t it would be pretty miserable at the top! The final thing of note in the square is the Fountain of Saint George, which sits over the 8 metre deep Herterich’s Well, water hasn’t always been easy to come by in Rothernburg even though the Tauber River is close by, the village sits on a rocky ridge so an underground canal system was built in 148 to keep the towns 40 public wells stocked with water in case of drought or war. This underground system allowed about 300 of Rothenburgs 800 homes to have their own private wells. By this time we were pretty wet as the rain is quite heavy today so we decided that what we would do is go to all the inside things today, so we set off for the Medieval Crime Museum. This is housed in the former Dominican monastery complex of the Monks of Saint John and apparently is the only law museum in Europe. It covers 1000 years of law, history and sensational criminal cases including the persecution of witches in Bavaria. It was really interesting museum, with some great displays but more interestingly the information on the different crimes and punishments was fascinating. For example to be found guilty of a crime you had to either confess or be witnessed committing the crime by two independent witnesses, obviously confession was the easiest way especially as torture was legal, however they had rules around confessions obtained through torture as well, so if you confessed to something while being tortured you also had to confess once the torture had finished, if you didn’t the whole process started again! One of the main things I learnt from this museum is that when it comes to creating things to inflict pain on our fellow human’s we become exceedingly creative! Once we had finished looking round this museum we walked back up to town and visited the Kathe Wohlfahrt Store and Christmas Museum. The town is apparently famous for its Christmas Markets and Kathe Wohlfahrt have five stores in Rothenburg, it is on multiple levels and contains a full on Christmas village with a teddy bear town and the largest collection of ornaments in Germany, we went in despite the fact it is only October as this is where the stores started, it was only once we had managed to escape that we realised the we should have paid to go into the museum which was upstairs and covers hundreds of years of German holiday history! After this we decided to try and continue walking round the town but the rain was still really heavy so we stopped for lunch instead! We had a very nice lunch then in the afternoon we set off for the Rothenburg City. Museum, this. Is housed in the dormitory building of the former Dominican Convent, and covers the town from 1274 to 1892, it is a strange museum it has a lot of weapons and statues and despite the description I am not sure there is a particular order or story to the displays, all the same it was interesting and had some good bits, they had a representation of the sales room from the former Saint George Pharmacy which was open from 1708 until 1991 and a Medieval Kitchen which dates back to the late 1200s, and is considered to be the oldest kitchen in Germany. It even has. The lazy Susan the nuns would use to give food to the poor visitors outside the convent without being seen. Once we had finished looking round this museum we thought we would go to the Blacksmiths Shop but despite finding the building we couldn’t find any evidence of a shop at all, but apparently blacksmiths were still working in the town until 1967. Although the rain had previously eased off it became really heavy again so we decided to head back to the hotel, where we sat in the ‘sun room’ and had coffee while uploaded the pictures and blog, the forecast for tomorrow is for it to be dry so hopefully we will be able to walk round the wall and the town without getting too wet before we head for home.