Medieval Festivus in Rothenburg

Sunday 5/31
We made the short trek from Bacharach to Rothenburg on Sunday...about an hour and a half to two hour train ride with some stops in between. We made it into town about 2:30, 3:00 and started searching around for some of Rick Steve's recommended hotels. We couldn't make it past Market Square (yes, there seems to be a Market Square in just about every town we go to, as well as a prominent church undergoing renovations...its weird) due to a large medieval parade going on, so we were sort of limited in our options at first and couldn't find any vacancies. Finally we gave up and decided to plop our bags down and actually enjoy the parade, and search for a hotel later.

Once the parade of horses, drunk men in medieval garb, drummers, etc passed, we went directly to our #1 choice for hotel. They were completely booked. Apparently this festival was pretty popular. The hostess called around for us and located a place with a vacancy. We headed in that direction, but stopped into a different place along the way...which ended up having an Australian owner, huge, well decorated rooms, and a cheap price! (59euro). Soo, thats where we stayed. We dropped our gear off and then headed out for some sightseeing. I picked up a schneeball thinking it would be a soft, doughy, donut, but it was actually more crispy and not all that delicious. Great marketing for it though. We tried to get into St. Jakob's church, but it was locked. And believe it or not, it was undergoing renovations! Shocking. So we opted to walk through some medieval stands that were set up. Most sold little hand-made knick-knacks, some sold food & beer, and a few featured craftsmen using medieval tools to make their souvenirs. One guy had a foot-pedal powered lathe on which he was turning down an aluminum mug with what looked to be a file. Maybe Floyd & Burke should look into picking one of them up instead of a CNC.

After downing a beer medieval style, we took a walk along the town wall, which was pretty neat. Most of the walls around the city were intact...only about 20% had suffered damage from Allied bombs when German troops took shelter there during WWII. A cloudy day was the reason for the lack of accuracy. Afterwards we had dinner at a place serving typical German grub -- I had pork & potato dumplings, Kevin had sausage and sauerkraut. Then we went on whats known as the Night Watchman's Tour. A fellow dressed up in dark medieval clothes, carrying a torch and a halberd. He told stories about the town as we walked from place to place, providing some history with a humorous delivery. Probably the highlight of the day, except for the festival, which I'll get to in a minute. The watchmen talked about how living back then was not so glamorous --the odor had to have been nearly unbearable. Not only were all sorts of animals doing their business in the streets, its also where everyone chucked their waste. So you can imagine when it didn't rain for awhile, how bad it must have gotten. The rain would wash "everything" downhill, so it was certainly attractive to live near the top. The castle town started around 1200 and was only conquered once in the 17th century during the 30 Years War, when a Count wanted to quarter his troops there. Although the town was prepared for a siege, the struggle only lasted 3 days. The story was that the only reason it fell so quickly was because the guard selected to keep absolutely everyone out of the gunpowder tower actually entered it himself. With a torch. Which doesn't mix well. And blew an enormous hole in the outer wall of the castle, right where most of the attack was taking place. The only two townspeople that died in the struggle were the guard, and an unfortunate soul that happened to be standing too close. The soldiers occupied the town completely for several months, and then left it poor and empty -- what the soldiers didn't kill off, the Black Plague did. So for nearly 200 years the town was utterly forgotten because no one had the money to rebuild it. Sometime in the late 19th century, someone had the idea of opening it to tourism. Every person that gave a certain dollar amount, would get their name carved in a rock along the outer wall. And so the town was rebuilt to what it is today!

After the tour, we headed over to a medieval camp area where the festival was going on full strength. They served beer in liter sized tankards for 6euro each. People were downing them left and right. There was a band on-stage playing a mix of German folk songs and more modern music. Germans were dancing all over the place. We grabbed some tankards and joined in, eventually sitting down with a group of younger Germans towards the end of the night and talking about our trip...at least thats the part that I remember! Ha. Perhaps a few too many liters... Made for a slow start the next morning, but it was worth it.