Mannheim is nearby and while there, we saw a castle that is being renovated to be a university, and a museum, as well as doing some shopping. It was a nice day in a lovely city.
Rothenberg is where it's at.
This is one of my favorite days since coming to Germany. I absolutely adored Rothenberg. It is one of the oldest cities in Germany, one of the few that has survived all of the wars over time. Actually that isn't exactly true. At the end of World War II, Rothenberg was heavily bombed and much of the city and it's wall were destroyed. In the last 70 years people have been putting time, money and effort into repairing the city structures and the wall of the historic town of Rothenberg.
What is this wall you're talking about Kara? I can hear you asking me now. In ancient times cities often put walls around the city to protect themselves from enemies. We don't see very much of this anymore because much of it is been torn down. Anyway long story short, there is about a 4 km walk along the top of the wall that you can do, and the view and history is amazing to see.
We also toured a crime and punishment Museum which talked about the different crimes and punishments for people over the ages. They made really hard decisions like whether to kill someone by hanging or boiling to death, also choices like what kind of shape of mask should a person wear and for how long. We also got to see different torture devices that were displayed. Most of them looked like something out of the Princess Bride movie -- lots of stretching machines.
Among other things, we spent time looking at a house that was built in the 1200s and touring a Christmas market that is open all year round.
My host mom's uncle owns a bed-and-breakfast as well as restaurants in this town. We ate breakfast lunch and dinner with her family, and for dinner we went to the main restaurant where we ate a delicious meal. I excused myself for a moment and while I was gone, my host mom apparently asked the chef to go light on the horseradish on my meal. He assured her that all Americans love horseradish. Sure enough when I got back from the bathroom and took my first bite, I said, "mmm, I love horseradish!" This became the joke of the night.
