Rothenburg and Another Shot of Wurzburg

On Wednesday we said goodbye to our host family the Pattinsons and headed out for the final leg of our trip in the Bavarian State of Germany. Our first stop was back in Wurzburg to visit the Residenz which we missed on our first visit to the city because of time constraints. We had so many people tell us that we must visit the Residenz that we thought it was probably worth the trip.

The Residenz is actually a palace that was built by the Prince Bishop of Wurzburg as a display of wealth to his city-state. For a long period of time, Wurzburg was it's own independent state with it's own laws and own currency.

Inside the Residenz we were not allowed to take any pictures, which is why we have so many!

Kurtis holding up a car in the parking lot or the Residenz.

The very pretty royal garden.

The entrance with the grand staircase.

Kurtis looking up at the worlds largest vaulted ceiling fresco painting.

This room was enormous.

The green room, my favorite in the whole palace.

View from the rear gardens.

The rooms in the center section of the palace were original with restoration, but the two wings of the building were completely destroyed in a mysterious fire in 1945. I am of course joking, it is not mysterious at all, but it would seem that the German way of dealing with WWII is to not talk about it.

When we finished up at the Residenz, we headed back to the Hauptbahnhof (train station) to pick up our packs which we had stored in a locker. We were now headed towards Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber.

A visit to Rothenburg was recommended to us by Kurtis' uncle Bill who had visited the walled medieval city during his time in service. We reached the city and found a place to stay for the night, a nice little pension (bed and breakfast). Then we set out to explore the city.

One of our first stops was to the tower in the center of town where we climbed a rickety old staircase and then eventually even a ladder to get up to the top. It was a tiny lookout space around a big bell, but the view was amazing and it was turning out to be a really beautiful day!










We took a stroll on top of the medieval walls around the city, going through areas that haven't changed in almost 1000 years.









Riding on a canon.

Kurtis scaling the fortress wall.

We also came across an amazing antique shop (the first we had seen with reasonable prices) and we bought a really cool old map of Bayern (bavaria). We heard that the city was especially beautiful at night (which is why we chose to stay the night) so we headed out for a walk just after sunset and managed to catch a part of the night watchman's funny tour.



Kurtis in front of the window of his dreams.


Rothenburg at night.

When we woke up the next morning we were delighted with our lovely breakfast selection (so delighted that we packed some up for lunch!) and we got all packed up and headed back to the train station to head to Nuremberg for the day.

In Nuremberg we pretty much just wandered around. I was feeling sick (maybe food poisoning?), so we just took it easy for the day. Our friend Mattias put us up for the night in the nearby town of Erlangen. Kurtis made us an American meal of hamburgers and French fries, which we once again ate before taking any photos!

And that brings us to today! Right now we are riding on a train to Fussen, the city closest to castle neushwanstein, which we will visit tomorrow. On Sunday or Monday we will travel to Munich and Kurtis will finally be able to say that he has been to Oktoberfest! We are so lucky to have met so many really great Germans who have hooked us up with a place to stay in Munich. It is very hard to find anywhere to stay during Oktoberfest and VERY expensive (150 euro per person per night for DORM beds in a hostel!!!). So a big thank you to everyone who has helped us out!

Schweinfurt and Wurzburg

To get from Frankfurt to Schweinfurt you must endure a 2 hour car ride on the autobahn with a man who has a minimal personality who is against wearing deoderant in all forms. Hannah helped us arrange a car ride from Frankfurt to Schweinfurt via a website for ride shares (www.mitfahrgelegenheit.de)which is a very common way for the German people to travel. The website is difficult to navigate if you don't speak German but luckily our translator (aka Hannah) walked us through it and called our ride for confirmation of the pick up point and the cost. To our delight, the ride cost only 16€, which is great in comparison to the train (80€). We held our breath, endured the ride and were dropped of at Burger King for pickup by our first workaway host and enjoyed a little American fast food flashback while we waited.

Our workaway is with an English family who live in the village of Hirschfeld in Bavaria, Germany. The village only has a bar and a church but luckily, a bus that runs often. Emma, Aaron, and their 4 boys Cameron, Arlie, Jonah, and Darwin (ages 2-12) graciously invited us into their home. We are helping out with the kids in addition to chopping wood for the winter months (made easy via a chainsaw and hydraulic splitter), and doing some small home renovation tasks. We have a lot of freetime to explore the area and have been using it to its full potential.

On our first day Emma dropped us off in Schweinfurt where we took some time to explore the city and attend the local art Museum (Museum Georg Schäfer, featuring an exhibit about the relationship between animals and humans). There wasn't much to Schweinfurt but we made a day of it none the less. Emma told us that Schweinfurt is a depressed city from being smushed in between Wurzburg and Bamberg which are both very beautiful.




Oh look, another church.

We took a day trip to Wurzburg (Got a ride to Schweinfurt from the friendly American Keana down the street and hopped a train to our final destination). There are many Americans in this area becuase there is an Army base nearby.


The bus unfortunately only runs every 2 hours on Saturday :(.


Trainride through the countryside. You can see the local nuclear plant off in the distance.

We had a limited amount of time in Wurzburg because the last bus back from Schweinfurt left at 8:30 so we assigned our site seeing priorities and marched off to Fortress Marienberg.


Another church (Marienkapelle) along the path between the bus stop and the Fortress.

The churches are beautiful, most of them taking 100 years or so to build.

View of Grafeneckart and Dom St. Kilian in old town.

We had to cross the 15 century bridge Alte Mainbrücke to get to the Fortress. The bridge was full of musicians and people enjoying the locally made weisswein (white wein).

Aww.



We are probably going to hell for this.

The view from below would be enough to keep me away from the fortress. We hiked all the way up the hillside, marching on switchbacks through rows of wine grapes in 85 degree heat (of course the weather earlier in the week was very cool and only changed from cold to hot when we planned on doing this walk).







The fortress was enormous and we walked through the museum (Fürstenbaumus), but unfortunately a lot of the artifacts were destroyed during WW2 bombings, which were never mentioned in the musuem (all of the signs simply read "destroyed by fire in 1945").







The views from the top were pretty amazing.





Doing what the locals do best, sitting and drinking beer and wine. Locally made wine for Amy and locally brewed beer for Kurtis!

We finished are drinks and caught the train and bus back to Hirschfeld, collapsing from exhaustion upon arrival.