July 10- The Black Forest and Rothenberg ob der Tauber

We got an earlier start this morning. We had breakfast eaten and were on the road by 8:00. Unfortunately, the rest of the Black Forest wasn’t up as early as we were.

Today was dark and very chilly. Many of the past days have been cool, and the guy that took Julie to our room last night said that it was a front that came down from the north that was making it unseasonably cold. Whatever was causing it, we were all a little cool, even in our windbreakers and light sweaters.

We found the Schwarzwald Hochstraße, the High Road through the Black Forest, and headed west towards Baden-Baden. We saw some hiking trails, but it was very cool and seemed like it could downpour at any minute. We didn’t want to get caught in a cold rain miles from the car. The Black Forest landscape reminds us of Virginia, and it seemed natural when “This Old House” came on the radio in German, since it is also a song that the Statler Brothers sing in English.

Our first stop was the Mummelsee. When we stopped their in 2001, we loved it. There was a large hotel and restaurant near a tranquil but legendary lake. On our first visit, we watched the paddle-boats glide around on the allegedly bottomless lake as Julie enjoyed real Black Forest cherry cake. We couldn’t wait to take the girls out on the lake and tell them about the water sprites that are supposed to come out of the lake and take people down with them. And the long gift shop nearby reminded us of the similar gift shop in Rockfish that we always liked.

We were shocked and almost ready to cry when we turned the corner to see several large cranes, the tell-tale sign of construction in Germany. (The Europeans must use some different construction techniques because we have never seen so many cranes in use at American construction sites.) It turns out that the hotel and restaurant burned down last year. The gift shop was still there, but was not open yet. We walked out to the lake, where the paddle boats were sitting, but we were all so cold that no one even considered sitting on the paddle boats themselves, which were still wet from last night’s rain.

We waited for the gift shop to open, at least. While we were there, Julie got sprayed with orange pop as she tried to open it for Anna. When the gift shop finally opened, Julie bought a fleecy sweatshirt to keep warmer. Emma bought a realistic looking stuffed fox, and Anna bought a swirly thing that she can hang in her bedroom.

We continued on the Hochstraße through the Black Forest. We saw a mannequin in a bobsled hanging in a tree, and correctly assumed it was advertising a luge run similar to the one we rode two days ago. The girls wanted to stop, so we pulled in. We were too early there too. We watched a group of what were probably high school students go in, and we waited more than a half an hour. When we finally saw an employee to ask, she communicated to Julie (in German) that they were short staffed and everyone had to be with the school group, on a ropes course or something like that. The track wouldn’t open until 11:00 or later. That was 45 minutes away.

We decided not to stay, and drove on, partly because we saw an ad for a similar luge run that was also in the Black Forest. We promised the girls that we would keep our eyes out for that one, but we never did see it and the town it was supposed to be in was not on our AAA map. (We’re not very satisfied with the AAA maps of Europe. We’re going to buy a better one of Germany before we’re done.) As we left the Black Forest through Baden-Baden, the girls hadn’t been on their luge run, and Julie still hadn’t had any Black Forest cherry cake.

One other little incident added to our frustration this morning. Julie and the girls were leaving the parking lot and were heading up to the bobsled track to check for a second or third time to see if they were open. Scott was slower to get out of the car, and Julie locked the cardoors with the click on the remote on the key chain. For reasons that are hard to explain without seeing the door, Scott couldn’t figure out how to unlock his door from the inside. Apparently, this situation hasn’t come up in the past week. He waited for Julie to turn around to unlock the doors, but she never looked back. He started banging on the window, but they were too far away to hear by then. He reached across to the driver’s side, but the switch that usually unlocks all the doors apparently doesn’t work when the car isn’t on. He pulled the door handle on the driver’s side, and the door opened, so he climbed from the passenger side to the driver’s side. As he did so, he must have bumped the parking break down, and the car started rolling backwards in the sloping parking lot, with him caught en route between the seats. He got the car stopped, but was angry and panicked by that point. When Julie finally heard him bellowing, she showed him where the latch was to unlock the door from the inside. That’s a valuable piece of knowledge that shouldn’t be so hard to find.

We left the Black Forest disappointed, but turned towards our next destination- Rothenberg ob der Tauber. Since we weren’t going to meet Julie’s cousin in Stuttgart today, and we left the Black Forest somewhat early, we arrived in Rothenberg earlier than expected. We parked our car outside the medieval town walls, and walked through the town to find our hotel. It turns out that our reservations are at a lovely little place right next to the Rodertor, one of the towers in the town’s walls. The kids love the room because it has a bunk-double bed, with plenty of room for both of them on the top and plenty of room for Mom and Dad on the bottom. Julie used her extra time to try to catch up on some laundry at a little Laundromat outside of the walls of the town. After that necessary chore, we went for dinner in the restaurant of our hotel. We had a combination of sausages (that the girls really liked), ham, and schnitzel.

So then the real adventure of the day began. We walked the complete circuit around the town of Rothenberg by climbing and exploring the town wall. It’s a walk that we really loved back when we visited before. The town itself is said to be one of the best preserved walled medieval towns in Europe, and walking the wall is a wonderful experience. We learned (from Rick Steves) that the wall is more or less empty in the evenings and early mornings, because most of the throngs of people that visit the city come during the day on busses and leave for hotels in nearby cities. Once again, we had the wall almost to ourselves and enjoyed the peaceful, scenic stroll thoroughly. The sky was blue again. We figure that it took us around two and a half hours to do the complete walk. We started near the Rodertor, which is right by our hotel, and walked counter-clockwise. Julie thought she was sneaky by heading us in that direction, but we soon figured her out. She was going that way because when other people approached us, we would move to the right, where we had the wall, and they had to move to our left, where there was only a railing. We returned to the hotel healthily tired and ready for a good night’s sleep.



Note: We've found a way to upload the past pictures. We've gone back to Salzburg (July 5) and added in all the pictures since then.