Roaming the Romantic Road to Potsdam.
While my bed was not under a princess canopy, waking up in a castle in Germany is a pretty fine life. Check out time still loomed and we were on the road by 11, regardless of my new royal standing, so we headed to one of my favorite medieval cities: Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber. The most quintessential walled city in Germany. (I might be using quintessential a lot, but there is a reason it is named the Romantic Road.) This town is frickin’ adorable. (Here is my blog from 2016 when I took the kids.) In this little village 58-years ago, United Artists filmed Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, (if you haven’t watched it with your kids, do it now!) and at the front of the Criminal Museum are the wagons the Child Catcher used in the movie. Traveling with my one adult child this time was mildly daunting, speaking broken German, and with mapping and translator apps at our fingerstips (e-sim). I am fairly astounded that I did it 10-years-ago by myself with an 8-, 10-, and 13-year-old. Ah, the blissful ignorance of youth. If you read my old blog, you will see a point in France where I did mess up royally and called in reinforcements, upping my husband flight arrival into Italy. Like the French: "I surrendered."
Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber is a step back in time with a cherry on top. This is my third time in this delectable gingerbread town, and it never disappoints. The Criminal Museum I remember as a child seemed to focus more on witch-hunts and torture devices (or maybe that is what my childhood remembered). Today, it still has various criminal punishment devices, but as an adult I find far more things to read about crime and punishment than an imaginative 12-year-old might be interested in (you can never go home).
I found Rothenburg pretty crowded for mid-September, so I caution a summer excursion, and suggest hitting the streets early. We walked around the town center, and along the soldier’s allure (wall walk behind the parapet). There is nothing like Rothenburg. It is a Bavarian keepsake. So long as your plane doesn’t mess up your timing, do not skip Neuschanstein and Rothenburg. Period.
After a few hours in the village (and you CAN spend all day), we carried on to Würzburg, and the sprawling stucco residence of the prince-bishop Schönborn family. A prince-bishop is a secular political ruler who also held a place of spiritual authority. While 90% of this building was damaged by fire after allied bombing, most of the palace has been restored to its 18th-century Baroque grandeur reminiscent of Versailles (UNESCO). The nave alone has more gold filigree than should be legal. Today, one wing holds a part of the Wurzburg University campus, with lecture halls for Philosophy, Egyptology, and Middle Eastern studies. While the museum was closed on Mondays, we did snoop around (just walked down some unlocked hallways) and found a whole display on Ancient Assyria (my husband’s mother is a descendant). For my daughter, that was pretty special.
We hoped to stop for a coffee before heading down the road to Bamburg (momma needed some caffeine)—our hotel for the night, but we missed the cafe closing by sheer minutes. So, I continued to drive—a little tired, but my daughter has been a fantastic navigator.
When I re-organized our reservations, I was unable to cancel Bamburg. They agreed instead to shift us one night into a different location. We were supposed to be in Little Venezia (near Alten Zentrum, Old Town Center) but they could only honor the change by putting us into an apartment near the train station (a little rough). As we parked in the video monitored parking lot, and pulled our luggage closer, we checked into our little studio. Curiously, I have read blogs calling both Würzburg and Bamburg small towns. They are not. They are pretty big cities with small old-towns (which I am sure costs millions to own in).
All these historic locations can be driven by car and pay-parking lots are available. At the time of this writing, the norm is you take an arrival ticket, park, tour, and then pay at a kiosk before exiting the garage upon your final departure, or they have cameras that record the license plate and you pay online after you leave.
Bamburg old town continues to offer views of cathedrals, half-timber houses, and cobblestone roads. We walked around early in the morning. Nothing worth touring was open yet; however, the Alten Hofhaltung is the courtyard where the 2011 version of Three Musketeers was filmed to represent 17th-century Paris. This is how quintessential this area of the world is!
Important tip: pin your car's location. We did and would have lost it otherwise. The streets (in many of these cities) meander from the river and then spread into a wider grid. But close in, it is a labyrinth of leaning houses and babbling cobblestones.
We took in the rest of the famous sites, and entered a bakeri for a little coffee and a bite. My daughter is sensitive to certain foods, so we were trying hard to find things she could eat. When I asked if they had gluten-frei, they shook their heads no (gluten is the same in English and German). Once we sat down, the woman next to us had ordered a salad with egg (even just a plain fried egg would have been on her approved food list). I feel split about this exchange. I also asked for a chai-latte. This was written on their board exactly as such. The waitress then asked if I wanted a chai macchiato. I said no, I wanted a chai-latte. She then decided I wanted an espresso. Thankfully, an English speaker corrected her, and I got a chai-latte (bigger, getting closer, but served in what we would use as a waterglass). I really don’t understand how that got misunderstood.
I can string simple sentences together in German. Chai-latte gut (good). Gluten schlecht (bad). It’s almost as if they don’t want to understand. It was busy, and it was a real bakery, so I will let it slide. But seriously… this is a tourist area and English is a compulsory language in German schools. So broken German mixed with the same words in either language, should be acceptable. In fact, when I went to fill up my tank, I asked the fellow one pump over (since there was no apparent credit card kiosk).
“Entschuldigen, (excuse me), sprechen Sie English?” He replied, “only a little.” I said, “Do I pay inside?” (Prepared to say, “Kuafe Innen?” = buy inside.) And he said, “Yes, but you can fill up first and then pay.” —now was that so hard? It is not that I expect everyone to speak English in Germany. I understand I am the guest. But, when you prefer to speak English to me instead of enduring my German, and I ordered off the menu per what was written—well, you get the idea. Germans can be a bit harsh and judgy. (Nothing like me at all.)
And, so we rolled on down the Autobahn, my top speed was around 100mph (160kph), but with construction, like the US Interstates, closed lanes slowed us down. Approximately 4-hours later we arrived in Potsdam. I expect it will take about 5-hours to drive from Potsdam back to the Munich airport on my final day.
When we arrived we found her apartment. It’s a cute little place with an even cuter College-aged nephew of the owner, and he speaks fluent English. He’s super friendly and lives three floors up in his own unit with a roommate. My dude! That made my daughter’s landing just a little bit sweeter. (Update, we do believe there is a girl-friend. Platonic is all she is looking for anyhow.)
I will spare you the details of taking my daughter shopping at the local mall, but they have one. I do find that the longer The -Zon dominates the world, the less local heritage exists. More and more it is impossible to distinguish between nationalities until someone speaks. Dialect is our new individuality. I think this will make it both easier for my daughter to navigate her years abroad, but also lament the lost of creative autonomy. And all new words are the same in all languages. It's a Bozo-Vanilla world.
For her year in Germany, and next year in Dublin, she needed a local phone option. We purchased an inexpensive one with a topper SIM-card, this seemed to be the best avenue. She’ll still have her “States” phone for WiFi uses and to preserve her data.
My next blog will cover her campus tour and Berlin—a bucket list city.
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