Thursday: October 3
Rothenburg / Wurzburg, Bears!
We have mostly completed a fairly long and productive day. Someone here must be living a very virtuous life, because once again we lucked out mightily with respect to rain.
The plan was to leave the boat for the whole day. We would take the bus about an hour and a half to Rothenburg, see the town, have lunch there, then drive to Wurzburg to visit the Residence Palace, and then back to the ship. The forecast for Rothenburg was cooler, about 50, with a low chance of rain in the morning, but then the chance of rain rising to about 50% for the afternoon.
I wore my heavy gray fleece shirt, and my raincoat, and I packed my down vest in my backpack. We caught a rain shower halfway there on the bus, so things didn’t look too promising. When we got off the bus I found it was rather cool and breezy. While we were making the customary bathroom break, I dropped all of my stuff and put my vest on under the raincoat. I wore my rain hat, not because of rain, but because otherwise my head was a bit cold. Next time I should pack my knit hat.
The guide, Katherine, was absolutely delightful. She has been my favorite guide so far, and I’m guessing that she might end up still being the best at the end of the trip. The tour was somewhat similar to what I did back in December, except that it was warmer and drier than before. On the other hand, this was Amy’s first time, as she didn’t go to Rothenburg in December.
|
We drove there along the “Romantic Road”. This has nothing to do with “romance”. It was apparently popular with a romantic art movement, where they tended to romanticize the medieval time period. At one point, the road went through some small villages along the Tauber River (more of a small creek). I remember in December noticing that the river was very high and was flooding in places. This time, it was well-behaved.
|
|
|
After the official part of the tour, we had an hour and a half of free time. Initially, I was wondering how I could fill so much time. At the end, I wished we had two or two-and-a-half hours of free time.
Amy and I went down the road to the nearest place to climb the wall, and then we went along the wall. We saw a fair number of people’s names inscribed on stones in the wall. Our guess is that these people donated money for the restoration of the wall. Interestingly, there seemed to be a number of people from Japan (or some other oriental country) and even one from NJ!
|
|
|
|
|
We went two “stops” along the wall, and then went back down to the street and back into the town square. We stopped in a bakery that Katherine had recommended to get some good German bread. Amy picked out one type and asked for some. The woman indicated an amount, and Amy said “half”, meaning that she wanted half as much as the woman was indicating. At first, she thought that Amy wanted half the loaf, which would have been quite a bit, but they got it straightened out. It was good for me as well, because I managed to get rid of quite a few coins that were weighing down my pocket.
|
The last time I was there, I had seen a teddy bear shop, but I was already running late, so I couldn’t check it out, so I was planning to visit it on this trip. Unfortunately, this is a national holiday (“unification day”), so most places were closed. I was happy to find that the teddy bear store (and the Kathe Wolfahrt Christmas store) was actually open. They had a bear up on a second story window blowing bubbles in the wind. There was a six foot bear watching over the entrance. Inside it was bear paradise. There were bears everywhere! They were sitting in nooks, perched on shelves, lounging on beams, etc. Under some stairs, there was a little “bear cave” with a sleeping animatronic bear who was snoring. Unfortunately, there was a sign asking us not to take pictures, so I didn’t. I guess they didn’t want to disturb the poor bear who was just trying to sleep.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
As I looked around, there was one bear that spoke to me. I made a half-hearted look around the rest of the shop, but I kept coming back to this one. Not surprisingly, he followed me home. I think I’m going to name him Herr Baer.
|
There is a portion of the town inside the walls where the walls are very close to each other and very low (so that you can easily look over the tops of them). It is sort of like a peninsular sticking out from the main part of the town. It is filled with a very nice park. We wanted to check it out. On the way there we found another instance of the same teddy bear shop that we had visited earlier. I quickly scoped it out, and I’m glad that I visited the other one first, before I ran across this second one. I liked the one we had gone to first better.
|
|
|
At this point, we unfortunately had very little time left—maybe about 25 minutes. We got to the start of the “peninsula”, took a bunch of pictures, but then we had to hurry back. It was at this time that I was really wishing that we had another 30-60 minutes to explore the park.
|
|
|
Lunch was pretty much the same as it had been back in December. It was billed as typical Franconian food, but it seemed to me more French and Polish. When I think of German food, I think of heavy, dark bread, and various kinds of sausage. Our lunch was French bread, stuffed cabbage (just like Golumpki, but with gravy rather than tomato sauce), mashed potatoes, and Cream Caramel. When I think of cream caramel, I picture a custard with caramel sauce. This was more like a caramel flavored mousse.
|
I got a glass of the local wine, which I think was called “Silvaner”. It was a dry white wine, and while I generally prefer red wines these days, I actually rather liked it. The only issue was that they served in a goblet, and it probably contained about two of what I would consider a normal glass of wine. I only drank half of mine, but I did enjoy it.
We had about an hour’s drive to Wurzburg (this time along the highway). Then we had a tour of the Residence Palace. This was pretty much the same as when I visited it in December. There was one significant difference, however. After the tour, we had some free time to explore. Strangely enough, like the last time, they allowed photos, but not during guided tours. I didn’t take a lot of pictures, as I had already taken a half million back in December. I did a “zoom” tour through the rest of the palace, and then I had about 25 minutes to explore the gardens. This was the difference as we didn’t/couldn’t do it back in the winter.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Once again, I could have easily spent another hour or two exploring on my own, but it was enough time for a quick whirlwind tour.
Back on the bus, Katherine counted us for the last time (to make sure everyone was on the bus). She did this in German out loud, and a fair number of us counted with her. At least, that is, until she got up to 10. After that, a lot fewer people joined her. I am amazed at the similarities between English and German. They even have the “teen” suffix for many of the numbers between 11 and 19. (It turned out that one of Katherine’s jobs was as a teacher of German as a second language.)
We then had a short (maybe 10 minute) ride to where the boat was docked. We had almost an hour before we were supposed to be back on board, so after dropping our stuff in our room, we went for a walk (I noticed that they had the very front of the sun deck open, so I went up there, got some pictures, and then went out to join Amy). Unfortunately, we are docked in a more industrial part of the city, so there wasn’t that much to see from a short walk, so we returned to the boat. I changed into my “on board” clothes, came up to the lounge, and proceeded to type up the day’s events.
|
—
We just finished a very nice dinner. At lunch, I opted for the local wine, a variety called Silvaner. These days, I pretty much drink only red wines. This was a dry white wine, but I found I actually liked it very much. When we got this trip, they were offering inducements (e.g. a cheaper price), but they were also offering the drink package for free. This basically gets you free drinks (aka alcohol). So far, we haven’t been taking advantage of it, as we’re not big drinkers. They provide free red/white wine with dinner, and that has been fine with me.
Today, however, I started using the package. When we got back from the excursion, I thought that I needed more liquid, and I decided to order a ginger ale. I found that soda, apparently, was not free, *except* if you had the drink package. So I could get soda for free on this trip. (With 2 1/2 cruises under our belt, this is the first time I’ve had a soda on board.) Then for dinner, I asked for a Silvaner wine instead of my normal “generic red”. I’ll have to see if I can find a store that carries it at our next stop.
I’m not a big steak fan, but they were offering a steak dish as part of the regional specialties, so I decided to try it. I ordered it medium-rare. I think it came out actually rather rare (I was joking that I could hear it moo when I poked it), but it ended up being actually very tender and very good.
For some evening entertainment, they were running a “liar’s club” after dinner. I had no idea what that was, but I thought I would show up and watch. It ended up being more fun than I expected. The idea was that they had 4 members of the crew (none of whom were native English speakers), and they would present an obscure word. Each of them would give a definition of the word, and then the audience would vote by the amount of applause for who they thought was telling the truth. It was a lot funnier and more entertaining than I thought it would be. (Perhaps the glass of Silvaner I had with dinner helped.) I thought that I had a pretty good vocabulary, but these words were (as intended) outside my experience. I think the words were “terradiddle”, “fullfart”, “gardyloo”, “titup”, and “collywobbles”. I didn’t know any of them, but Amy knew what “gardyloo” meant, and I had a vague idea what collywobbles were.
It was interesting seeing the way the four people presented themselves. One woman (one of the waitresses/bar tenders, from Serbia) was clearly an extrovert. She had elaborate stories behind her definitions and really got into it. Another woman (head of housekeeping, from Poland) was clearly an introvert. She tried to get into it, but she was clearly out of her comfort zone and seemed a bit stiff. I think if I was called upon to do something like this, I would be very much like the Polish woman.
Tomorrow is going to be a bit more relaxed. The excursion isn’t until the afternoon. This should be the last excursion that is redundant with our previous trip, until we get to Budapest itself. Our next stop is as far as the December cruise went.