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Click the Brandenburg Flag for a German translation Für eine deutsche Übersetzung dieser Seite einfach die Brandenburger Flagge anklicken |
 Bavaria State |
Vacation 2010September 15, GermanyFrom Lake Constance to Rothenburg |
 Mittelfranken County |
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On September 15, we left Lake Constance behind and moved north. For the next four days, Volker's brother Steffen would be our driver. |
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Shortly before passing through the town of Ulm, we crossed river
Danube. Later downstream, the Danube becomes central Europe's largest river,
connecting no less than ten European countries. Here, Beautiful Blue Danube was neither blue nor beautiful, but small enough, to actually walk across it. |
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Our second stop was in the small village of Steinheim. We took a
short hike just to stretch our legs and found out, that we just landed in the middle of a meteor crater! About 15 million years ago, a double asteroid hit Earth, creating the nearby 15 miles wide Ries crater and the smaller, 2.5 miles wide Steinheim Crater in which we were currently standing. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXAerial view of the impact crater (from wikipedia) |
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Rothenburg ob der Tauber, meaning "Red fortress above River Tauber," was founded around 970 and is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Germany. We arrived in the evening, just in time to join the night watchman on his tour. |
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In the past, night watchman was a dangerous job. He had to deal with thieves, drunks and all kind of threats to the city. He patrolled from
sunset to sunrise - in winter, that meant from 8pm to 5am. At the top of every hour, he blew his horn to let the citizen know that they were safe.
One of his main jobs was to watch out for fire, the biggest fear of all citizens. The city of Rothenburg employed night watchmen until 1920. Today, Hans-Georg Baumgartner has taken over this duty. He does not look out for thieves or fire, but takes tourist on tours around the city. He has been doing it since 1991 in German and in English and over the years, he became internationally famous for his outstanding job. |
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The tour started at the town hall. At the top of every hour, two windows open next to the clock, showing two historical figures from the
Thirty Years War, Imperial Field Marshal
Tilly and Rothenburg's mayor Georg Nusch.
In 1631, Tilly's troops took Rothenburg and planned to pillage and destroy it. As a last resort, the town's mayor was urged by Tilly to empty the pitcher given to him as a cup of welcome in one draught. Mayor Nusch successfully emptied the pitcher, containing almost one gallon of wine and so saved the town.
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The night watchman took us all over the old city. The towns interesting history was delivered in amusing stories with gusto and humor.
After the tour, we felt like Rothenburg experts.
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| A big Thank You to Steffen, who took all the night pictures, including this amazing one below! |
View from the city wall at night and at the next morning.
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Click the left turn sign to get back to the previous page. Or click the right turn signal to move on to a Rothenburg day-tour. |
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