German Trip Day 5: 27 April 2010

On Tuesday we again woke early, and drove down the Romantische Straße (Romantic Road). We went through Bad Mergentheim, Apfelbach, Merkelsheim and Weickersheim. We stopped at the Herrgotskirche in Crelingen, which is famous for its giant Tilman Riemenschneider carved wood altar. The church was built here because a peasant plowing in a field mysteriously plowed up communion bread. No pictures were allowed in the church, but here's what it looks like from the outside:


We did not go to the nearby Fingerhut (thimble) museum even though it sounded almost strange enough to be interesting. Next we drove on to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. We got close enough that the city was looming on the horizon, only to have to detour (Umleitung!) way out of town because the road was closed.


The city has a cool wall that goes the whole way around the city, and you can walk on it. Here's the gate into town:


And here's K walking on part of it:


There is a building downtown with a high tower with a good view; of course it was closed.

Here I am eating the local specialty, a "Schneeball" (Snowball) that was a ball of fried dough with powdered sugar on it:


Here's a view of the city; K likes down-the-street views like this:


Their clock acts out a legend about how they avoided being sacked by the Swedes during the 30 year war. The mayor accepted a bet that if he could drink 4 liters of wine in one go the town would be spared. And it was.


Next we got back on real highways and drove to southern Bavaria. We eventually would see all three of King Ludwig II's castles; the one we saw first is the most photographed: Neuschwanstein. After getting there we changed our plans and didn't actually walk up to it, so I only have a slightly distant picture:


We then went to the Wieskirche (meadow church), which is Jen's favorite church. Here it is from the outside:


It is much more impressive on the inside:


The decorations, including what looks like marble, is all stucco. Apparently the marble-looking stucco costs more to make than actually using real marble.

We next stopped by the town of Oberammergau, famous for its buildings with frescos painted on the side:


There we got some Leberkäse, a processed meat type sandwich popular in Bavaria.

We then went on to the second of Ludwig's castles, Linderhof. Ludwig had a thing for Louis XIV and Versailles, so this is vaguley modeled on it. Here's the fountain around back:


Here's the "grotto" that he built, that was specially designed to perform Wagner operas. I apologize for the blurry picture, our camera does not do well in the dark. The grotto has a waterfall you could activate on command, which K liked.


We were discussing what inspiration a modern crazy king would use when designing a giant grotto. We thought maybe Star Wars.

Just because I am in Germany doesn't mean you won't get wildflower pictures. Unfortunately I don't have a guide book and it's been difficult trying to identify them using websites. The white flowers are not edelweis... eldeweis is a very strange looking flower.


On the grounds was also a Morroccon-style house, and a Moorish tea house. Here's a look inside the latter:


We were taking pictures and sad that the fountain was turned off (possibly due to yet more constrution). But suddenly at 4pm the fountain turned on, so we had to run back and take pictures:


We then drove onward, as we had to get to our hotel by 7:30. On a sidetrip to get the right kind of gas we passed some lakes that had protected frog crossings. I tried to get pictures of those, but no luck. I did get a picture of something else; in Germany the bridges are not only rated for trucks, but also tanks (it's hard to see but that's what the lower weight limit is for):


We drove and drove, and then we had a slight disagreement with the GPS. It thought our hotel was on top of a mountain, in fact it thought it was up a closed-for-the-season road that led to Hitler's ski lodge. Eventually J managed to call the Hotel (where no one spoke English) and was able to sort out directions, and we made it there only a little bit late:


Our hotel was in Berchtesgaden, a pretty town at the edge of the Alps. We drove through Österreich (Austria) on our way there. We walked down into town and managed to find an Italian restaurant that was still open, and had supper.
On to Day 6
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