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.