Dad

My dad works for a company called DB Schenker.  It’s a transportation company.  The DB stands for Deutsche Bahn.  Its headquarters are in Essen, Germany.  So, when he first got this job earlier this year, I asked him if he thought he might ever do any business travel to Germany, which would be quite convenient since, hey, we were going to be living there. 

He said he didn’t think so.  It wasn’t going to be that kind of job.  Lo and behold, 2 months after we move here, I am meeting him at the Nurnberg Bahnhof.  He was coming to visit us after a 2 day business meeting in Essen!  We’re not sure if it will happen again (international business meeting), but I thought it was pretty cool that my dad could come see me, if only for a few days.

And herein lies the second issue.  He was only scheduled to be in our area for 3 days: Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  We woke up quite early on Sunday to drive him to the Munich airport so he could fly home.  That’s not a huge deal, but we live out in the middle of nowhere!  Sure, there are towns and villages aplenty, but where are the sites and places people fly from other places to see??  Well, they are all about 3 hours away.

Mark this as a warning to all those who plan on visiting us.  You probably won’t stay in our house for more than half of the time.  Sure, we could do a lot of long ass day trips, but the good stuff will most likely require a hotel stay or two in addition to our place.  This isn’t exactly the “travel hub” I had planned on becoming, but this isn’t a bad thing either.

It’s just inconvenient when trying to figure out what to do with your father for 3 days.  Especially when he forgets to give you his passport information beforehand and therefore cannot get on post very easily.

We discussed Munich for Oktoberfest, which started 17 September.  We discussed the Eagle’s Nest and Salzburg, Austria for tours of WWII relics as well as the Sound of Music tour.  We discussed a Wurstfest (yes, a literal sausage fest), that was also one of the biggest wine fests in the country.  Everything was 2-3 hours away.

What we decided on was eating out at a really good local German place – Zur Post on Thursday night, visiting some local villages on Friday, and driving to Rothenberg ob der Tauber (or Rothenberg odT) on Saturday.  Rothenberg happens to be one of the most heavily touristed cities in Germany and is only 45 minutes away!

They have a very well preserved medieval city, complete with wall and ramparts that you can walk on the tops of, as well as interesting museums, a lovely Rathaus, and a Kathe Wohlfahrt shop so large, one could spend half a day in there, easily.  It houses a huge Christmas Village, which according to the pamphlet, is world famous.  We have a very small shop like it in the PX at Graf.  It’s about the size of one of the many rooms in this shop at Rothenberg.  

Another interesting tidbit is many of the signs (say, in museums) are not only in German, but also in English…and Japanese.  This is how heavily the area is touristed.  In the Kathe Wohlfahrt store, there was an obviously Asian woman dressed in a dirndl (those dresses you see German women wearing at fests), and all I could think was “well she’s obviously not German.”  She was hired to answer questions from the Japanese tourists. Locals have bumper stickers on their car that say, in German, “I’m not a tourist, I actually live here.”

I can’t wait to go back, as we didn’t do and see everything I wanted to do and see.  We did see the Criminal Museum, full of medieval rules and punishments.  Very interesting.  We didn’t pay to go fully inside St. Jacob’s Cathedral.  I did get some pics, but wanted some more that were not super zoomed.  We didn’t go to the top of the Rathaus.  We did get Schneeballen though.  They are large, sugary, dense pastries that seemed to coat my entire digestive track.  I recommend sharing if you get one.  I didn’t feel right the rest of the day.  And I love sugary pastries!

And, I would like to go back with someone who has patience for shopping.  I want to spend a LOT more time in the Kathe Wohlfahrt store.  Seeing as I was with the hubs and Dad – two men who have very little patience for standing around and looking at trinkets, this was not the ideal time to fiddle around there.  Plus, we had to see the museum before our parking time was up.

Pics to follow.