Saturday December 23: Wurzburg/Rothenberg
Splitting Up
It looks like we finally drew the short straw, water-wise. Rumor has it that this is as far as the boat can go. It sounds like the boat will be staying here tonight, and we’ll be getting more busing tomorrow.
This is also a strange day in that Amy and I are doing totally different things.
This morning I got off at a “technical stop”, and we were bussed to Wurzburg. There we visited the Bishop’s Residence/Wurzburg Residence, which apparently was the local ruler’s attempt to make something to rival Versailles. Personally, I liked it better than Versailles. It featured huge stone arch ceilings filled with frescoes and other art forms.
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One large room, which was devoted to a large double staircase, featured on the four sides of the ceiling art representing the four (known) continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Some of it was somewhat fanciful, as the artist was painting things he had never seen (such as an elephant). The America side featured an Indian woman riding a giant alligator. In another room, they played with illusions. For example, there was a character playing a horn, but while the character was painted, the horn was three-dimensional and stuck out of the painting. There was a dog standing on one of the columns along one wall, but the dog was actually a 2-D painting of a dog.
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They had an interesting camera policy. They used to forbid photos, but as an experiment, they were allowing photos, but not during the tour. So while the guide led us around, we could not take pictures, but afterwards, we had about 10 minutes to explore on our own, and then we could take pictures. I’m not sure I understand the point of this, but I didn’t make the rules.
Then we got back on the bus and drove over backroads to Rothenburg. For a while, the road was following a small creek, which was somewhere between very full and overflowing its banks.
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When we got off the bus, the weather was not very friendly. It was drizzling and very windy. We got a short tour of the town, which ended at the restaurant where we were getting lunch. It was a very German meal (not). It featured French Bread, stuffed cabbage (Polish Golumpki), and Cream Caramel. To be fair, though, the stuffed cabbage was with gravy rather a tomato-based sauce.
After lunch, we had about an hour and a half to wander around on our own. I did my best to shore up the local economy. I found a toy store that had stuffed animals. I guess teddy bears were invented in this region, and so that was the dominant bear species in all of the stores. I did find one somewhat acceptable bear that found its way into my bag.
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I visited the big Kathe Wohlfahrt Christmas store. Amy had seen some ornaments at the previous one that she liked, but she hadn’t gotten any. I looked for them, and while I found some similar ones, I couldn’t find the ones that she wanted. I decided that they must have different stock in different stores. I got a few that were in a similar style. When I left, I saw another Kathy Wohlfahrt store across the street! So I went in there. I should point out that these stores are interesting. For the most part, they are arranged as a single path that starts at the entrance, snakes around the store, and then exits past the registers. I wandered through this store, which I think was bigger than the “big” one that I first went into. I had a picture of the ornaments that Amy wanted, so I showed it to a sales associate. It turns out that I was about 10-20 feet premature. I found them easily in the next room.
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At this point, I noticed that all 3 of my bags were labeled Kathe Wohlfahrt Apparently, the toy store where the bear found me was also one of these (I think I heard that there were 5 of these stores in the town). I used the coupon this time for the ornament purchases, but I didn’t use it for the bear, as I didn’t realize I was in one of their stores.
Then I just wandered through the town and Christmas Market. There was one store that had a zillion kinds of swords, knives, and armor. They said that they could ship it anywhere.
The weather was rather bleak, and I was sort of shopped out, so I went in to see the inside of the Saint James Church/Cathedral. There was a small fee to get in, which was a little odd. Afterwards, I found that it was a Lutheran church rather than a Catholic one. At one point, I could hear the wind whipping around outside, howling like a banshee and heard the rain pelting against the windows. It sounded like a terrible nor’easter, and I was worried that I would get drowned when I left, but when I did leave, the weather was the same as it had been. Outside, I found a statue of St. James holding a scallop shell, and a plaque saying something about the Camino de Santiago.
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I visited the wall surrounding the city briefly, but then I had to go back to the restaurant to meet the group to leave. I found it was a bit confusing trying to navigate, but then I found the city center and from there it was a straight shot to the restaurant. I found a store devoted to teddy bears, but I only had time for a quick peek before I hurried on. I found the Viking crowd with a few minutes to spare, and maybe two minutes later, the last of the people showed up, and we walked outside the walls to the bus.
The bus got to the Wurzburg Christmas Market area at 5. A lot of people got off there to visit the market. There was a shuttle bus from there back to the boat at 6, a bus from the boat to there at 7, and a return bus at 8:30. I thought about getting off and visiting the market, but they are all getting to be about the same, so I stayed on the bus and returned to the boat.
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Amy’s plan was to have a mellow morning. Then the boat would dock just after lunch, and she would spend the afternoon at the Christmas Market.
When I boarded the boat and returned to our room, however, I found a note from Amy. Apparently, they didn’t get docked until 3:30. Amy decided to skip dinner on the boat and stay at the Christmas market until the 8:30 return bus (i.e. catch dinner there).
I thought about trying to go out there and meet up with her, but I really preferred a warm, dry, sit-down dinner here, over catching a slab of sausage, and eating it outside in the drizzle.
This also gave me enough time to write up today’s events before dinner.
We’ll find out the details of the end of the trip tomorrow morning at a 9:30 briefing. My best guess is that we’ll spend the night here on the boat, do a longer bus ride / excursion tomorrow, return here to spend our last night, and then board here for the bus ride to Prague.
On one hand, it would be nice to be with Amy, but it is also nice to be warm and dry. I was thinking that the best way to get over a cold is to walk around all day in a cold drizzle.
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Any thought of getting a quick dinner and then hiking over to meet Amy turned out to be pretty ridiculous. As we were getting dinner, it became fairly clear fairly quickly that at best I would be able to meet up with Amy just in time to catch the bus back. In reality, even that was impossible. Amy caught the 8:30 bus back and joined us for dessert. Dinner ended around 9. I was having a long-distance, slow-speed “conversation” with Amy through text messages. Even by 8 or so, she said that most places were already beginning to tear things down. This was apparently the biggest Christmas market yet, and it is now history until next year.
Amy likes to take things to the edge. She came back with 0.05 Euro in her pocket, and with her phone/camera at 3% charge remaining.
It turns out that when Amy was looking for the bus stop, she first went to the wrong bridge. At that point, she was actually a lot closer (a 2 minute walk) to the boat than to the bus stop. But unfortunately, she didn’t realize this.
What would be really nice is if we can find a suitable Catholic Church to go to Christmas Eve Mass tomorrow evening. I asked Andrew, who said that he was looking into it and would hopefully have more information tomorrow morning.
The plan is to spend tonight and tomorrow night here, and then take the bus to Prague. Tomorrow afternoon, there is a historic tour of Bamberg. It is questionable as to the value as it is roughly a 90 minute bus ride, a 90 minute tour, and then a 90 minute bus ride back, but Amy figured it was better than sitting around here doing nothing, so I guess I should get used to sitting on a bus tomorrow.
It is sort of weird to think that this is Christmas Eve eve.