A Thing of Past – II

On reaching Rothenburg odT train station, we checked the way to our hotel. Contrary to my imagination, about the quaint little town, a wall and a gate and all that, we were welcomed by a traffic signal. The lady at the information center had drawn the map for us and assured that the hotel is just 5 minutes from here, ours is not that big a town, you can walk – she said. But walk into traffic? Now, for that she had not prepared us. But we went down to the traffic light, turned right, walked a few meters and the old wall and its gate welcomed us! The concrete road turned to a cobbled old street and the imposing wall surrounded us by its very existence.

About Rothenburg ob der Tauber

This is a quaint, little old town, which has preserved much of its 12th and 13th and 14th century buildings. Contrary to Hitler’s orders, the Nazi military commander in charge of this town gave it up easily and the American Assistant Secretary of War knew enough history to ask the allied general not to use artillery while taking the town. So much of the old buildings, towers and walls are still preserved. In 12th century, a Hohenstaufen Roman-German king built a castle here and started holding his court. Though on a trade route, Rothenburg soon fell out of the charm as a capital city. It lived through the Staufer and Habsburg dynasties and became one of the 20 large cities of the Holy Roman Empire. By 1800s, the town became a part of Bavarian Romanticism and laws were passed to prevent major changes to the town. Since then this middle-Franconian town has been well preserved as a medieval town.

The narrow cobbled alleys and the omnipresent wall and its towers are a constant reminder of the past. The Old Town House, the Christmas Decoration Shops, the gardens and the observation decks in the wall – all are very charming. The view of the Tauber valley is also splendid. And the unkempt grass and weed (yellow and white flowers) sometimes growing outside the wall limits have their own beauty! Although the cars whizz past you on those cobbled roads, there is enough history for time travel! We walked on all the major alleys and roads, explored the gardens and walked through the wall.

On the Menu!

May be it was the influence of the history or may be we were just hungry, but we decided to have a German dinner. The size of the dinner was as big as an average German! But it was the menu that took us aback. We went to a place that can be roughly translated as Potato House. The menu had everything potatoes! You could order just the boiled potatoes, boiled but unpeeled, if you wanted to earn what you eat, fried, hash-browned, baked, French-fried, mashed – the way you want. Of course, all these were side dishes, the main ones being pork, more pork and some more pork and may be a small fillet of salmon.

Trees?

Even though there are enough old buildings around, what struck us was the absence of any trees on the streets and inside the walled-town. Many of the large trees were found in the gardens or on the slopes of the valley, but not inside the town. Was it by design or chance – we do not know.

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte

We wanted to sample the original Black Forest Cherry Cake. Hopefully we did that in Rothenburg! We don’t know if it was the mom-and-pop shop that we were looking for, but it was one of those melting-in-mouth cakes for which we will always remember Rothenburg!

On our way back to Mumbai, I was asked so what did you like the best? Rothenburg; came an emphatic reply!

A Thing of Past

Germany was my choice on the itinerary, what to do in Germany wasn’t. I stuck to the conventional places like Frankfurt, may be Cologne, Munich etc. But then Panchita came across the site www.romantischestrasse.de and suggested Rothenburg ob der Tauber as a place to go. At first, I was skeptical but later relented when I came to know what exactly we will be visiting.

But to see Rothenburg, we had to get there! A search on EuRail showed that no matter which way we took, it involved four trains, three changes. Again, my skepticism grew…but something about the old town touched our nerves and both of us wouldn’t give up! Let it be four trains and three changes, we said to ourselves, we are going there!

The evening before our travel, was spent in Amsterdam. I realized that in hurry, I had scribbled only the train numbers and stations that we were going to change instead of the entire itinerary. This presented a problem – what if we don’t get to know our train, our platform, what if we miss? The handy EuRail timetable naturally did not have information about how to get to this small town. So we made a trip to the Service Point at Amsterdam Centraal and checked on their computers. And later also checked using the hotel’s wi-fi some details that were missing in my initial scribbling.

We started from Amsterdam Centraal at 8 AM and took the ICE going to Basel. It dropped us at Frankfurt (M) Flughafen (Airport). From there we took an ICE to Würzburg, a RegionalBahn from Würzburg to Steinach bei Rothenburg and from their one more RegionalBahn, finally to Rothenburg ob der Tauber! By the time we reached Rothenburg, it was already past 2 PM but there was nary a sign of tiredness. The journey was very pleasant, speedy, convenient and most enjoyable with the scenery outside. As mentioned in the earlier post, Amsterdam-Frankfurt (M) Flughafen was little less than four hours. We could notice the change in the landscape. Amsterdam while beautiful was not as enchanting as sections past Köln. We got to see the Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral) from the train, as it crossed the Rhine. The landscape changed considerably as we approached Würzburg, the beginning of the Romantic Road. The fields, dotted with alternate yellow and green patches, small houses, roads, sometimes Autobahns running parallel trying to keep up with our train, solar-panel covered roofs, cows grazing in the meadows – all of it was enchanting!

From Steinach bei Rothenburg, there is a service to Rothenburg ob der Tauber every hour. The train takes about 15 minutes to reach Rothenburg odT. It goes through some sections of no population at all. There are actually two halts between the two stations, but the train takes it only if someone requests it! There is a stop button similar to the one found in many buses in Chicago, which rings a bell for the driver indicating a stop has been requested!

When we reached Rothenburg, the air was chilly. A small drizzle welcomed us to this place of past, but were we prepared to find what was inside the walled city? Stay tuned for the part 2.

ICE ICE Baby

One of the charms riding an ICE is the feeling of flying. The ICE is build using very sophisticated technology to cover long distances in short times. The Köln-Frankfurt section is 177 km and ICE covers it in 70 minutes. So is the Nurnberg-München section which is 171 km and covered in 65 minutes. Not only is the train comfortable but also built so well that you don’t feel the speed inside it. The tracks are designed for 300 km/h speed. And the technology is called Third Generation Intercity Express. You can read more about it here:
Köln-Frankfurt High Speed Rail Line
Nuremberg-Munich High Speed Railway

Although, some sections are specifically designed for speeds upwards of the 250 km/h, the overall train travel is very fast. We covered Amsterdam-Frankfurt (M) Flughafen in less than 4 hours. A similar distance, Mumbai-Vadodara, though still takes 7 hours.

What more: The ICE has crew similar to a plane. There are conductors and members of the Bordbistro ever ready to help you. Traveling first class, after all, has some advantages! The only disadvantage is if you are in a point-and-shoot mode, you may miss the shot!