Scary On

Heading out of rainy Augsburg after a Chinese lunch, our bus passed through the small towns of Donauwörth and Harburg into Nördlingen. This quaint city has a deep root in history like many of the other towns in the Romantic Road. It is one of the three cities to have a established city wall. Inside the wall, are homes located in a circular pattern. At the center is the Market where Saint Georg’s Church (a amazing baroque church). The city is the major city in the fertile Ries depression (a crater 10-25km/6-15mi across caused by the fall of a meteorite 15 million years ago). We walked around the city before heading out to our next destination.

Dinkelsbüh surrounded by high city walls, essentially lives in a time wrap or so it feels. The town is everything 13th -15th century style. But that does not mean it lacks modern amenities. We had to buy some very specialized batteries for the photographer’s camera and we did it in this town. As we were mainly checking out electronics stores for the batteries, we really did not explore the city much. But we did capture a few good photos and a piece of its history.

Our next destination is the much famed, Rothenburg ob der Tauber.Known for its medieval charm and Christmas markets, this city. It was around 5 pm when we reached Rothenburg – a bit tired but ready for the adventure, we walked around the city, visiting the famous St.Jacobskriche, the townhall square listening to musicians and peeping into stores showcasing nutcrackers of all shapes and sizes.

As we had previously mentioned each of these towns need atleast 4-5 hours to actually see everything and do justice but with our time crunch we did have to settle for a whirlwind one day trip. Tiring, overload but fun! We really wanted to walk on the city wall tour but just could not fit it in our trip.

As the sun set in the horizon we headed to Weikersheim, a small town on the river Tauber. The town boasts of its 12th century castle which belonged to the Hohenlohe family. We got there a little past 6, the closing time but our bus driver/tour guide was able to get us into the beautiful gardens of the castle. We watched the setting sun in the lovely castle gardens and yes it was truly romantic!

We had one more stop at Würzburg before we reached Frankfurt. Since our flight out of Frankfurt was the next morning at 9 we decided to get out of the bus at Würzburg and explore the city for longer before taking the rail to Frankfurt. We headed to the lockers at Würzburg station, deposited our suitcase and started exploring the city. It was around 7.30pm and the city was almost asleep. We rushed in to the nearest Macdonald’s for a bite and headed towards the Alte Mainbrücke (the old main bridge) lined with Baroque statues of saints. As with all other towns we had been to this one had numerous beautiful churches and buildings like the Julius Spital and Marienkirche. Due to the lateness of the hour we could not visit the famous Residenz. We spent a few more hours around the town before heading back to the railway station.

We headed to Würzburg’s station and caught the next train to Frankfurt airport. We were there at the airport around midnight, we spent the night, a little uncomfortably on the reclining chairs at the airport before catching the morning flight to Chennai.

4 days in Germany, fast, lovely and filled with memories! A wonderful way to spend our 2nd wedding anniversary!