We left the Black Forest around 9AM on Thursday, August 15. We flew to Denmark on August 5, so we're 10 days into the trip. We took our time driving to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. As we neared Saxony, we arrived at Hohenzollern Castle after an hour and 45 mins of driving. We decided not to tour the castle (after a while, they all start to blend together), but we did spend an hour or so walking the grounds and indulging on some local ice cream that tasted like a fruit roll-up.
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| Hohenzollern Castle |
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| Arial view of Hohenzollern Castle |
We then drove another 45 mins or so to the Lichtenstein Castle. Again, we didn't go in. Instead, we walked the grounds and got some bratwurst for lunch at the castle cafe.
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| Lichtenstein Castle |
We took a little break from castle hopping to visiting the small German town of Musberg. It took us about another hour to drive there from Lichtenstein Castle, but prior to the trip, the other couple we traveled with had traced some of their family history back to this small town. We stopped at the historic Lutheran church and strolled through a nearby cemetery though it was far too modern for the names we sought.
After that last pitstop, we continued north around Stuttgart toward our final destination, Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Little did we know that by driving inside the city wall, we would be driving down cobblestone and highly traveled pedestrian streets. Immediately the beauty of this place hit us. We found our hotel, parked the car and took full advantage of this walkable little town.
The Burgarten Palais is a stunningly beautiful hotel. The whole place reeks of charm though the rooms are modern. It felt more like a guest house than a hotel. We booked through hotels.com and the other couple traveling with us used booking.com. Both worked fine and both bookings came with breakfast.
We ate dinner pretty soon after arriving and then took a twilight walk through the city gates. One of the delicacies in Rothenburg ob der Tauber is schneeballen. Schneeballen is a crunchy, tasty delight. They're made with small pieces of dough baked together and then covered in delicious toppings. I'm finding it difficult to describe, so I'll let my pictures do the talking.
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| Schneeballen |
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| Rothenburg ob der Tauber city gates |
The next morning we started off the day with scrambled eggs, cold breakfast meats, fruit, and fresh bread. We then set out to explore this magical town. Even in August, we soon discovered that the shops of Rothenburg ob der Tauber love Christmas.
Our first stop was a toy and doll museum with a large display of doll houses. From there, we went to probably the largest Christmas store I've ever seen. I forced myself to stop at 4 ornaments though I could have easily purchased enough to decorates numerous trees. There is no place I wanted to photograph more, but I respectfully obeyed the "no photo" signs throughout the store.
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking about the town, in and out of shops. We indulged on some lemon cheesecake and coffee and vanilla cake for lunch at our hotel and met up to leave this lovely place around 3pm. It's a relatively small town. If you're just passing through, you really don't need to spend more than a day here, but it was truly a splendid day.
I got to chatting with a coworker years later about this charming little town, and he told me that it's an even more enchanting place to visit during Christmastime. I've often said throughout my travels, that I won't return to anywhere I've already gone until I've been everywhere else. Rothenburg ob der Tauber may be the exception.
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| Most famous street in Rothenburg ob der Tauber |
Back in the car, we bid farewell to Rothenburg ob der Tauber and made our way to Frankfurt in about 2 hours. Almost immediately, we realized that we made a terrible mistake! Click HERE to read about how we turns our plans completely upside-down.
Thanks for reading!
- Foxy the Traveler
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