Day 82 12 June Rothenburg

We arrived in Wertheim today overlooked by the Wertheim Castle and the church. Today is our tour to Rothenburg although Elizabeth is not feeling well so she stayed in bed.  Lots of people asked about her at breakfast.  

The road to Rothenburg was quite a picturesque drive through farmland and woods.  It is referred to as the Romantic Road which is an invention from the 1950s. . Our tour guide Wilhelm (or Bill) told us that our bus driver Andrew had only got his bus licence last week.  Andrew was feeling nervous about the trip today but he had a couple of beers so he was feeling more relaxed. This medieval city is the most complete with intact city walls and escaped destruction during World War 2.  There were lots of people but not overly crowded.

The St Wolfgang Church (and there is more than one), which was the church of shepherds which was always on the outside the city or outside.  This was because they were thought to carry sexually transmitted diseases and they didn’t want them in the city.  I’m not sure I would want them in the city either after those long winter nights.

We had samples of sausages which were fine, they tasted a lot like the mustard and tomato sauce supplied. We also had samples of dried apple.

After the tour finished, I visited the Museum of Criminality with David (a semi-retired pharmacist from Noosa). Essentially it was a museum of medieval crime and punishment, having lots of torture equipment, seals, Papal Bulls and execution materials.  It is unsure how much were original and replicas but I suspect that most of the collection were replicas not that this was a major problem.  It was quite interesting. Some of the criticisms of it on TripAdvisor are not probably relevant now

as most of the displays are also in English now.  I also checked out the allegedly largest Christmas shop in the world, which had quite good displays but not all could be photographed, the store was quite good and bought a Christmas decoration to remind us of our trip.

Images from the Medieval Crime Museum - spiked chair. display cabinets and masks of shame.

Apparently the reason why the vineyards go up the slope and not across is unknown except it had always been done that way.  My pet theories are that it would be easier to spot people stealing your grapes or to find people you are looking for plus it allows for all entry points rather than just two.

As we were leaving, there was a large parade of re-enactors in costumes in particular the travelling salespeople. It was quite impressive and it was just sheer luck that we saw them.

Arriving back at the boat we had to wait for the gangplank to be organised.  Elizabeth sounded better but she didn’t go to dinner.  Tonight it was a seafood buffet.  I expected a bit of a bloodbath around the buffet based on previous experience but when I arrived there were very few people so I was able to get my meal without difficulty. I took back a bread roll and fruit for Elizabeth but it was good that she could eat all of it.