Friday was a near disaster. Our next scheduled stop was in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. That was a bit far, so I picked a town about half way there and punched it into the Nuvi.
Driving on the Autobahn took considerable concentration. I paid attention to what the Nuvi was telling me but not to where it was taking us. We left Hohenschwangau the way we came, back through the terrible Stau in the Munich area. After a miserable couple of hours we cleared that and were making 150km/h on the Autobahn. Which Autobahn, I had no clue but at least we were getting there fast. After a while we saw signs for Ingolstadt. Ingolstadt is the birthplace of Frankenstien and home to the Audi factory. It was also not anywhere near where we wanted to go. First chance I got, I pulled off the Autobahn and into a Tankstellung. Debbie was upset. I was less then pleased. At least we were still in Bavaria. I fought with the Nuvi for a few minutes and finally convinced it to take a reasonable route to Rothenburg odT. The best route took us back the way we'd come, something that did little to improve things. I made a mental note: always check the Nuvi.
We stopped for fuel and split a miserable sandwich I'd bought at the Tankstellung. 1/2 tank of gas for the X3 cost us about $70.00. The wretched sandwich about $7.00 After that I made the best possible speed. During the break in period, BMW recommends keeping the speed under 100mph. I set the cruise for a little under that. The kilometers flew by. Approaching an interchange, I saw a sign in German saying the ramp was closed and suggesting an alternate. I misunderstood the directions and sent us off in the wrong direction again. Fortunately we caught this almost immediately and only lost a few minutes getting turned around. Did nothing to improve the mood though.
We arrived at Rothenburg odT in the late afternoon. The T and the H are both pronounced. It sounds something like wrote heN berg. The Nuvi and I both did a terrible job navigating inside the city walls but we eventually found the Hotel. I found a safe place to park the car.
We wandered around town a bit and then had dinner at one of the many restaurants. The waitress spoke no English, so we ordered in German. I likely if unwittingly offended her, the town and Bavaria, but they served us anyway. I had wurst, sauerkraut and bread. Debbie had the same. The meal was wonderful and that did a lot to improve our spirits.
After dinner we wandered towards the town square where several crowds were gathering. One was heading to a play. I checked and the performance was in German. The other was crowded around someone talking about the town, in English. That sounded interesting, so we followed along. Just by luck we'd come into Hans Georg Baumgartner's Night Watchman tour. Luckily we'd caught his English performance. The tour is both entertaining and informative. Highly recommended. Having come in just after the start, we didn't realize until the end that he charges for the tour. We were happy to pay as his tour saved the day. We didn't have enough euros, but he happily accepted dollars.
We don't have any decent photos of Rotenburg. We didn't have much time and the town itself is a difficult, if beautiful subject. I put the best I've got at the top of the post. Google or the night watchman's website have more.
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