Rothenburg upon Tauber

We were up at 8am today and had, had a huge sleep and felt refreshed and raring to go.
We had been looking forward to where we were going today for a long time and had allocated the whole day for it just incase we needed it.
I was still feeling pretty crap about Germany and had told Ellie last night I think I’m done and I’m happy to drive the romantic road but I don’t want any more stops until we leave, except for this one.
The bike mechanic had left a very bad feeling having not fixed my bike and charging me €50 for the pleasure and Germany as a whole seems like England in the fact that if they can charge you for something they will. Car parks here aren’t free and Infact quite expensive unlike other European countries. It’s completely counter productive to charge for car parks because it just stops people going into towns and spending money, especially when we now live in an online world.
We’ve been so lucky to find free overnight parking in Wanda and as we were filling up with fresh water to leave we spoken to a German lady in a Motorhome and she said it’s incredibly rare to have a free Aire nowadays.
We left the Aire at 10am heading south along the romantic road and it was blue skies with white fluffy clouds this morning which automatically put a smile on both our faces as we drove through some very picturesque little villages.
As we came into Rothenburg I passed a big bike shop that had some proper mountain bikes in the window and the names of all the major bike brands. I asked Ellie if she thought I should take my bike in and she said we could try and we left Wanda in Lidl car park and walked back to the shop.
It was a great shop with real mountain bikes, lots of spares and a work station and I spoke to the guy at the counter and he said he could have fixed it but they are to busy today and closed for 1 week from 1pm, but he did tell me where another shop was.
We trundled off walking back down the main road we had just driven up and 1/2 mile later we saw the shop.
This shop was huge and again had proper bikes in, 3 big work stations with mechanics working and it was full of spares. I asked the guy at the counter if he spoke English and he spoke excellent English and I told him the story of me and my bike and he said bring it in and we’ll look at it.
We walked back the 1/2 mile to Wanda and then drove back and took my bike in. Straight away he looked at it and said if you wait a minute these guys will have a look, pointing to the mechanics. I waited and looked around the store admiring the bikes while Ellie waited in Wanda. Then one of the mechanics picked my bike up put it in a hydraulic bike stand and asked me what had happened.
I told him the story and straight away he stripped all the gears off and then got a hanger straightener out and straighten the hanger. That’s the part that holds the derailleur on the back, and the part the old boy at the other shop said he’d done. It was so bent it was unbelievable. Once he’d straightened the hanger he refitted the derailleur and then loosened and removed the gear cable. Within 10 minutes he’d fitted a new gear cable and aligned most of the gears and then spent another 10 minutes fine tuning them. Then he bled my front brake and to make sure everything worked he took it for a ride fine tuning the gears under pressure. Within 45 minutes I had gears and brakes that were better than when I left home. This mechanic loved bikes and loved his job and he did in 20 minutes what would take me half a day. I really wanted to put this guy in Wanda and bring him home but Ellie said I’m not allowed to abduct any Germans.
The bill came to €108 which does seem expensive, that’s £90 but everything over here seems to cost more and he did tell me the prices of everything as he was doing it, the cable was £23, straightening the hanger £15 and bleeding the brakes £10, and he fixed the bike right in front of me so I don’t feel conned. That’s my birthday money gone and it’s not even my birthday yet.
It was now almost midday so we went to a free car outside a school and left Wanda there while we headed into the walled town of Rothenburg.
Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber is a walled town best known for its medieval architecture and probably more famous for its Christmas museum. We were completely blown away at how beautiful the streets were and it’s not just one street, it’s all of them. This place is truly authentic. Timber framed, chocolate box houses along ancient cobbled streets with flowers and hanging ivy draping from them, it really was a spectacle and how we had imagined all German towns would look like for some reason.
We took a slow walk up the main drag looking at all the different shops that sold food, Christmas decorations, medieval armour, shoes, jackets, glassware there was everything and it all looked in keep with it’s surroundings.
Our first buy was a local dish of SchneeBalloon or snowballs in English. These are fried broken pastry wrapped in a flavoured icing. They actually tasted like real butter shortbread coated in a flavoured icing. I had caramel flavour and Ellie had a hazelnut one. They were scrumptious.
After eating we wandered around the whole of Rothenburg looking at all of the tiny little streets and shops and then we went back to the main drag and brought Bratwurst Sausage with sauerkraut in rolls. We have only ever had cold sauerkraut before but this stuff was hot and delicious, finally we had, had some real genuine German food.
At 3pm we headed back to Wanda, via the ramparts of the walled town they seemed to go on forever, by the time we did get back we had walked over 6 miles around Rothenburg and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was going to head back in after 5:30 when the shops had closed to get some photos but I decided against that and opted to drive down a little further to another free park up in the town of Feuchtwangen. This is one of the smaller towns on the Romantic Road but does offer a free Aire but it only has 7 spaces. We arrived at 4pm and there were only 2 spaces left.
We backed in and it seems like a nice Aire next to a park with tennis courts, it’s clean enough but not long after arriving a dog started barking and it’s been barking for the best part of 2 hours so we might need earplugs tonight.
At 6pm Ellie started cooking Pork Chasseur for dinner and it was a well needed meal as we’d just had junk food all day. The rain had just started to fall again although not to hard yet so we closed the curtains and blinds and settled in for the night.Read more