More Rothenburg and a castle!!

(We are now in Berlin, but our internet connection has been the pits, so I haven't been able to blog!!! So, here we go!!)

This is our second day in Rothenburg! We decided to walk outside of the outside walls ...

If I were an enemy, I would really have a hard time climbing these walls. Yikes.

Gorgeous houses outside the city- could definitely live here for a couple of days, months, years?

After our long walk, we came back to the center and heard "When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way?" from West Side Story?? There was a visiting high school band from Kansas, and they were really good.

Funny combination- Rothernburg/West Side Story/Kansas/Germans...

Maddie's favorite were the dancers.

Our cuties.

Totally enchanted.

I think I blogged about climbing this tower- this is a picture of it- doesn't seem high, but it is about 6 inches wide up there all the way around, and every time we talk about climbing a tower the immediate response is "NO!!!!"

There has been some TASTY ice cream along the way.

THE SUN IS OUT! It was overcast/rainy 99 percent of the time, and SO nice when we felt the rays!

Our last walk outside of Rothenburg.... we will miss it :)

We then took a quick 45 minute drive to Castle Colmberg which was converted to a hotel.

It was a welcomed sight when we saw it on our drive in.

The remaining wall (much smaller than Rothenburg).

The countryside is really beautiful here- it kind of reminded us of Italy in some places.

Our window from the outside...

and from the inside...

They have a beautiful courtyard outside where we ate dinner, and a playground right beside us- it gave us a nice break for us to eat dinner while they were happy playing.

The playground.

I'm going to blog about this later- but I bought these play puzzle things for kids while traveling, and I give them 6 stars! They have saved us on the plane, trains, restaurants. They are the best.

Steve had an out of body experience with this dessert - says it was his favorite of all time- Rasberries/rhubard stew with poppyseed ice cream. I agree with him- it was pretty yummy.

LOVING the teeter totter.

The light at the castle before the sun went down was beautiful, so we took some family photos...

The sun setting over germany. Gute Nacht!

Rothenburg

Yesterday when I was showing Maddie some pictures of our trip, and she wanted to know why our whole family wasn't all together in the pics... so here was my attempt before the day started :)

After our romantic road drive, we couldn't find our hotel in the coun outside of Rothenburg, so we found a hotel inside the fortress city- which was probably better anyway, because this city has so much to see! We woke up pretty late (930) and then headed for the sites! Here is our first stop to the outside walls.

A view of a really cute house and its coat of arms (!?)

Maddie walking through the passageways on top of the city walls...

One of the entrances to the city.

We walked to the main plaza and climbed up the tower and I barely took this photo. I was so scared! Even though it wasn't that high, the walkway was incredibly narrow. Yikes.

The view of the city from the tower...so awesome :)

A view of the city wall-at one point in the city's history, it was so dirty/smelly, only the rich could get out and live outside of it in the countryside. It is so the opposite today!

The Christmas Museum boasts to be the largest in Germany... it was amazing, but a major tourist trap I'm sure. We had to buy ornaments. Couldn't stop ourselves, but I'm thinking we probably could have bought them somewhere else for cheaper!

Of course, everywhere you look is stunning. I love the doors here.

Waiting before we got tickets to a museum...

This museum (can't think of the name right now!) had pretty cool artifacts, and I love looking at the drawings of what they might have worn.

Another pic for Maddie!

A really neat sculpture in one of the protestant churches depicting the boat to judgment day...

For some reason, I really liked this because the two angels on the right represent faith and hope and the other two angels on the left represent doubt and dispair, which is so true.

For lunch, we walked into this hotel/restaurant by chance, and it was AMAZING. The back had a room completely surrounded in glass, and we could have sat there for hours.

YUmmy.

The girls LOVED playing in the garden where a fortress used to be.

Really pretty grounds.

Another view of the city from the gardens.

A view of this funny looking house- why is it built on this tower??

Playing hide and go seek.

A great reaction when I found them!

See the face? They used to pour hot liquid out of it on their enemies!

On to the famous criminal museum.

A quick shot of our hotel!

They had some live criminals- but they seemed happy?!

Boy- this time was rough. They had all sorts of devices to humiliate people, this one for talking too much, or spreading rumors.

This one for seeing too much and acting like a pig...

This one "bossy" women, or women that were quareling too much...

Just can't imagine.

And my personal favorite- the chastity belt. Sure- I've heard the word, but seriously, this is so wrong on so many levels. Men would put them on their wives while they went away from home for long trips, or women would put them on if they were traveling by themselves. Seriously.messed.up.

Bakers would be forced into this cage if their bread was too light and then dunked into the river for who knows how long?! Oh my. Also very disturbing.

There were many more cruesome devices that I'm sure you can imagine... very cool museum. One of a kind.

We then ate another great dinner (but, I think we are pretty much done with sausages,potatoes and more pork. I think we are craving Mexican or something.) and headed to the "Night Watchmans" tour, which was very hilarious and entertaining. The only bad thing was that it was so popular and crowded, we couldn't hear every word, but still glad we went.

Tomorrow more of Rothenburg and a night in a castle :)