This weekend I went to Rothenburg Germany. It's a walled city built in the 1300s...part of that wall still stands, most of the wall was rebuilt in the 1500s, 1600s, and again after WWII. The city is completely medieval and was preserved so well simply by the poverty the 30 Year War brought to Rothenburg. Thanks to their 200 year old slump, Rothenburg is now one of the coolest old towns in Germany. Although Rothenburg by car is less than a 4 hour drive away, it takes nearly 6 hours to get there by train. This is due to poor planning on the trains part and taking the long ways to get there, then circling around the destination before actually arriving there. Most of the Camp Adventure people I live with went to Amsterdam...but after much searching I found a travel buddy...Joey! Joey and I didn't really know eachother before this trip, but we figured why not! So we hopped on a train at 7am and got into Rothenburg around 1pm. We found our hotel that happened to be above a bakery/pastry shop...not something you'd find in most places. It was really cute. We had an excellent view from our window....NOT...of a light shaft, woohoo! After dropping off our backpacks we went out to explore. 
We hung out in the castle gardens looking out over the rest of the city and the surrounding countryside for a few hours. Then we went to the museum of crime and torture...a very fascinating place full of strange torture devices from medieval times including many masks that those that were put at the stocks were forced to wear so that everyone knew their crime. 
Other devices included the double necked violin where couples would be chained together with their fists up at face level across from each other, this was used to settle marital disputes or quarreling women. After laughing at all the different and strange torture devices Joey and I wanted to see the large Lutheran church in the middle of town that contained an alter that is supposed to have a vial with a drop of christ's blood in it...kind of bogus, 
but it was still a really nice looking alter all carved in wood depicting scenes like Jesus marking Judas as the traitor. When we exited the church we saw a stairway leading up onto the wall of the city. The wall has a walkway all around the inside with windows to see out. The stairs to get up it are very steep and the path is not smooth since most of it was built in the 1500s. So crazy to think that I was standing on something soooo old!!! By the time we'd walked a portion of the wall we were getting tired and hungry and decided to find a place to eat before the Night-watchman's Tour. We ate at a very cute little cafe (but what cafes aren't cute really?) and had a mediocre German meal. 
We then gathered in the town square to catch the Night-Watchman's Tour. This man has been doing the same tour for 18 years. He's a true professional and would tell clever stories and jokes along the tour. He takes you around the wall and tells you the history of the town and a few funny stories. My favorite story was of how the city lost their 3 day battle in the 30 years War
because the guy in charge of watching the gunpowder decided to check on the tower where the power was held...only problem was that the tower was very dark...and considering electricity hadn't been invented yet guess what he brought into the gun powder tower....yup...a torch! The only two members of Rothenburg to die in the battle was the guy with the torch and the guy that was standing too close. Hehe, it makes me laugh.After the tour my feet were killing me so we went back to our hotel to take a break.
We planned on going back out to check out the town joke "Hell" the only pub open late. I layed down on the bed and stretched while Joey took some time to read, and the next thing I knew it was midnight and I was still fully clothed and the lights were off and Joey was already sleeping...so I crawled around in the dark to get ready for bed and didn't wake up again until 8:30am. Mind you I crashed on the bed at 9:30...which meant I got 11 hours of sleep. Joey kept making fun of me for being a toddler for how early I fell asleep. But I didn't care, that was probably the best sleep I'd gotten since the first trip to Switzerland.
After having a fabulous breakfast in our bakery/hotel and checking out we went out see what more Rothenburg had to offer. There are six guard towers around the wall, but only one of them you can climb so we went to climb all 138 stairs to the top. The stairs were more like a ladder than a set of stairs, and I had my backpack full of souvenirs on my back...a few times I nearly fell backwards. But at the top we got to see amazing views of the city and the wall. You have to pay at the top of the stairs to be in the tower and when I got there the sign said 1.50 Euro for Adult, and 1 Euro for children. Thinking nothing of it I handed the man a 2 Euro coin piece and the man looked at me and said, "you're a child right?" and I looked at him very confusedly and said "well how old still counts for a child?" and he replied, "you're a child, it's cheaper" and gave me a wink...people in Rothenburg are so nice.
Another example of nice Rothenburgians: Rick Steves (the travel book writer) speaks very highly of Rothenburg and has many recommendations. Most places I go I'll take Steves's warnings and suggestions...in Rothenburg it's a must! If you drop his name in a shop that he's recommended you'll get a 10% off discount, in one store I got a free map that had been drawn with beautiful detail of the city. So when I bought my souvenirs what would have cost me close to 60 Euros I got for close to 50! It was a pretty sweet deal, not gonna lie.From the tower we had viewed a children's play area. Our train didn't leave until 3pm and we had lots of time to kill so we walked over to the playground to see if there was anything good. What we found was even better than that. A Welsh family was there playing "please jack, may we cross the river?" In this game Jack (the 'it') stands at the far end of the playing field with his/her back facing the group.
The group will then say, "please Jack, may we cross the river?" and Jack would respond, "only if you're wearing...Blue!" if you were wearing blue you could then run/walk towards Jack and try to tag him/her before he/she turned around...if you were caught moving you had to go back to start. So Joey and I walk up to this playground and don't really think much of the people there, but then we started watching this family play mostly because the kids were so cute speaking in their little welsh accents and all. The next thing we knew the family was pulling us into the sand pit to play the "please jack may we cross the river" game. The boys were so delighted that we were willing to play with them. After 4 rounds of the game the boys got bored and wanted to show Joey had good they were at the monkey bars, while I talked to their mother about what we were doing in Germany. After she discovered we worked Day Camps all week long she asked, "So why are you spending your weekend free-time with my kids? 
You need a break" We laughed and said something like "we just can't seem to get away from them" but used it as an excuses to leave the park to find lunch. We ate at a little cafe Rick Steves had recommended and he was right, great prices, better food and just out of the way from all the daytime crowds. After lunch we had to head back to Ramstein which made me very sad. I really feel like Rothenburg is my favorite place in Germany. The city is just so relaxed and cute with all its medieval charm.Pictures: 1) a cute Rothenburg alley 2) view from our hotel window 3) other view from our window 4) at the crime and torture museum 5) walking the wall 6) view of city wall from tower 7) Joey, the Nightwatchman and Me before our tour 8) view of Rothenburg at sunset from the Castle gardens 9) the hotel 10) the stairs to the tower 11) at the top of the tower looking over next watch tower and wall
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