June 1st, 2017 – Headed to Rossdorf Germany – Rothenberg
Hello everyone! Today is June 1st. The stunning realization has befallen both Trent and Carolyn that their vagabond trip will soon be coming to an end. It has been a trip that has taken them across much of Italy, into Austria and Germany. Before their trip is done they will have also traveled into France. They have visited some amazing places, seen so many wonderful things and got to meet and mingle with so many locals in theses countries. However, today and tomorrow are their last full days here and they will head home on the 3rd.
Today we will be in transit. We will leave our cozy and cute nest in the little town of Grainau, located just outside of Munich. We spend 3 really wonderful and relaxing nights there. We will be headed up towards Frankfurt, where our flights will be departing – theirs on the 3 and ours on the 6th. I had a difficult time finding an apartment to rent on VRBO or Air B&B up here. We had hoped to stay in Heidelberg but we weren’t able to book anything. What we found was a home to rent in the little town of Rossdorf which is a suburb of Frankfurt and sits outside of Darmstadt. The home is quite large and spans across 5 floors – basement to attic. We meet with Maximillian who is our host to pick up the keys to our home of the few nights. “Max” is young – maybe mid to late 20s. The home we are renting was his childhood home that he grew up in. Max speaks excellent English and shows us the home. His Father, who owns the home now lives in another city and he has left the home to Max to rent. Regrettably, it is rather sparsely equipped and will probably rank as our least favorite rental. Another reason, we aren’t thrilled with it is because of the town where it sits. We are no longer in the touristy confines like those that we’ve been in, and we have probably forever been spoiled by our last stay in the Bavarian Alps. Rossdorf is a working mans town. It does have a small cathedral for the towns people and it is currently being renovated, but there is no quaint little town square with wide pedestrian boulevards with little shops. For Trent and Carolyn, they will only be spending 2 nights here and then heading back home.
As we head out of Grainau, we must head back into Austria to go around the mountains once again. We are taking the same route as we did when we headed to Fussen. This will allow us to hit the Autobahn and take a pretty direct route to our first stop – Rothenberg. The trip up takes us somewhat longer than the planned 2 hours due to there being a lot of roadwork on the way. We depart at about 9:30 am and arrive in Rothenberg at around 12:45. We have lunch at Hotel Reichskuchenmeister, it is a beautiful hotel with a reputation for a great restaurant and Beer Garden. Today we are dining in the garden. I have the schweineschulter (pork shoulder), Trent the sauerbraten (braised pork loin) each of our dishes are served with a potato dumpling and some sauerkraut – his made with purple cabbage and mine with white. Elisa has the wiener schnitzel and Carolyn a flammkuchen (flame cooked flatbread) with salmon. Carolyn’s dish is not what we ordered, there may have been a communication problem with the waiter, but rather than send it back she keeps it because it looks good. We have been spoiled with pizza in Italy, but this is a little different. The crust is softer and more bread-like, but it is still thin, The cheese is really soft and zesty tasting – not like a mozzarella. It has almost a cream cheese consistency. Lastly, there is no red sauce on it. The salmon is spread generously across the “not-quite-like a pizza” dish and it is delicious. My pork shoulder is very good the brown gravy served with the generous portion is also delicious. Both Trent and I find the potato dumpling to be a little different with a soft and sticky consistency – similar to Japanese moochi. With the gravy it is tasty, but they are very heavy in consistency. I can barely eat one of them. Elisa’s “original” wienerschnitzel is well prepared but it needed some sort of sauce or gravy on it, but she declares it to be “not-offensive”. After lunch we had only about an hour and an half to do some sightseeing and shopping. Clearly not enough time to thoroughly explore the town of Rothenberg. Rothenberg is probably one of the best preserved medieval walled cities in Germany. Although it was severely damaged during WWII it was beautifully restored. We stroll through the narrow streets and see the town square and the cathederal. We see the main gate to the city and the oft photographed Ploelien – which means little square. Elisa and I also are shopping for a cuckoo clock to take back home. There are lots of tourists visiting Rothenberg on this day, but it is not overly crowded. We are all surprised by the number of Americans visiting, but also the many Chinese tourists that are there. This may explain the Chinese restaurant, we saw as we walked to the Reichskuchenmeister restaurant.
A little about cuckoo clocks – they were originally designed and built in the German Black Forest region of Bavaria. The most distinctive features of the cuckoo clock is the small bird that will appear from behind a door to call our the hour of the day with its unique “cuckoo” sound. They are traditionally made from native wood and are hand carved. The oldest known clocks date back to the 1700’s. There is a society, that strictly regulates the manufacture of these clocks today. The finest clocks must be made entirely of wood that is hand carved and hand painted. The cuckoo sound is made from tiny bellows and music comes from Swiss made music boxes. The clock movements are made from brass and hand assembled in Germany. There are 3 primary makers of cuckoo clocks here in Germany. Since we will be soon leaving Bavaria, Elisa and I are on the hunt for one. Rothenberg is an excellent place to shop for one. Many of the shops carry fine cuckoo clocks along with less expensive versions that do not carry the guild certification. We end up finding one we like at the Uhrenhaus – a Kathe Wohlfahrt store. We arrange to have our clock shipped to our home. This way, they do not charge us the 19.7% VAT tax that is built into the price of the clock. Also, they fully insure the clock and will warrant it for 2 years. There are authorized repair shops throughout the US and if repairs are needed they will make the arrangements. Another advantage of buying it through the large Kathe Wohlfahrt store a large chain throughout Germany, is that we get a gift card for our purchase that can be used in any of the Kathe Wohlfahrt stores on a subsequent purchase. Coincidentally, there is a huge and world famous Weihnachtsdorf – “Christmas” store right here in Rothenberg. As I wind up the purchase of our cuckoo clock, Elisa, Carolyn and Trent head to the Christmas store to take advantage of the 40 Euros on our gift card.
With the sightseeing done and the gift shopping completed, we head back out on the road to make the 2 hour drive to our temporary home in Rossdorf. We meet young Maximillian and take possession of our large but albeit sparsely equipped home. When we get settled in, we make a quick run to the grocery store before it closes to buy some supplies for breakfast. At around 8:00 pm we set out to find a local restaurant. The 2 restaurants that Maxmillian has suggested are both nearby. His favorite, is a restaurant called Zur Sonnen (to the sun), but it is closed on Thursdays. It seems odd to us, but since these are family run establishments, they too need a day off now and again. Max’s second suggestion, Zum Schutzenhof is open on this night. We walk in, and the person that greets us at the door speaks no English. I trot out my limited German and we ask for a table for 4. He says something back to us in German after looking in the dining room and beyond and all I can pick up is “nichts” which means nothing. As we are about to turn and leave to look for another restaurant in this small town, the lady of the restaurant says something to him in Italian. Elisa overhears it and turns back to to the lady speaking Italian and her husband that has now joined into the conversation. They tell us in Italian that they are really busy right now and if we could wait about 15 or 20 minutes they will be able to seat us. They seat us in an indoor dining room, but since it is warm today, everyone is dining outdoors on a nicely shaded and breezy patio. We are served some complimentary Prosecco for our inconvenience. Once seated, we are surprised that Zum Schuetzenhof has an entirely Italian menu. We are all humored by the fact that after we’ve eaten our way across Italy, we end up in Germany only to be eating Italian. However, our host are Italians that immigrated to Germany 48 years ago to open this restaurant. The food is good and authentic. The portions are huge, seemingly the way Germans like them. Carolyn has a veal parmigiana – this way she get a prosciutto fix in. Elisa has the Veal Limone, Trent and I both have the steak with mushrooms. All of our food is good and we are given boxes, almost unheard of here in Europe, so we can take our leftovers home with us. There is enough left to make a decent sized lunch for us all. After dinner, our hosts spend some time chatting with us in Italian and we are treated to a very nice limoncello. After than, we call it an night and all turn in around 11:00 pm.
Tomorrow, we are off to Strasbourg, France.
Aufwiedersehen for now!
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