Day trip to Rothenburg ob der tauber

We finally went on our day trip!! With Spring set in and the sun setting late, we want to make the best use of the next few months by going on lot of day trips. We chose to go to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a well preserved medieval town on the romantic road. The romantic road is a term for a theme route coined by travel agents in the 1950's to describe the stretch of highway in Southern Germany between Wuerzburg and Fuessen. Before giving you a peek into this lovely town, I would like to share a few pointers regarding day trips with children.

           Towns, cities, villages which are an hour and a half hour drive from home can be made into day trips.   Apart from saving costs in staying over you have the luxury of coming back to your own home and bed!!! Before you decide to venture out on this trip, it is advisable to do your home work very well. You would want to get the maximum from your sightseeing. I have been referring the site Live Like a German. It provides information on not only the sights to see, also about the opening and closing times, holidays, ticket prices, also the address. The next step would be to have a small map( with the walking trail shown) of the town you're visiting. Germany is best discovered by foot. The small narrow cobbled streets give you some of the fantastic sights of quaint shops, timbered houses, beautiful gardens and so on. The next pointer what I felt was to pack your own lunch(We didn't do it, hence we lost precious time). The reason being, you do not have to waste time sitting at a restaurant, waiting to place your order, get the meal and when you are done you would have lost a good hour and a half. All around German towns you have lots of seating and small parks available, so seating yourself to a nice home made lunch will not be a problem. To make up for the effort, you can have dinner before you head back home. The last point to note would be, leave early so that you reach your destination by 9 or 10 the latest(which we have to yet accomplish). Take plenty of water and fruit juices along. Hope this helps!!!

With our homework done, we drove down from Lohr to Rothenburg. The autobahns are great and help you reach in no time to your destination. It is hard not to fall in love with Rothenburg. The town is surrounded by these walls and towers which defended the city over the ages. The walk atop the wall is great!! Not only does it give you a peek into the city, it also gives you nice views of the countyside.

Rothenburg offers you plenty of churches and museums to visit. One such museum is the Imperial City Museum. Of particular interest is the old priority kitchen (1300), thought to be the oldest preserved kitchen in Germany. The museum gallery has a comprehensive collection of impressive paintings by the English painter Arthur Wasse. A must see is the St. Jakob's Lutheran church which contains one of the finest high altars in Germany.

The excellent wood carvings are the work of Swabian master carvers. The altar paintings are by the master artist Friedrich Herlin. Pictured below is the Altar of the holy Blood.

The best part about Rothenburg is Kaethe Wohlfahrt's "Christmas village" which also houses a German Christmas Museum. Open all year round, it offers 30,000 different Christmas decorations to choose from.     It is worthwhile to pick a decoration for your family back home. Makes for an excellent gift!!!

A good portion of your time is spent at this Christmas village. The saddest part about Germany is, not only do museums close at 5:00 also all shops close by 6:00. It is hard to choose between the two. That is what we realised, because by the time we were done here, The Crime Museum had closed and we had a howling disappointed boy in our midst!!! Nevertheless, we intend to return to this charming town, not only to discover it more, but also to spend time in some more of its quaint shops!!!!