Rothenburg

The 5fordhams, accompanied by cool cousin Iris, went to Rothenburg today. Rothenburg is, for lack of a better description, the quintissential medieval walled city. While there are many walled cities remaining in Germany, Rothenburg is the gold standard that the others attempt to compare themselves to. It's also one of the only ones that wasn't bombed. But I digress.

It's old, insanely charming and has a magnificent wall around the entire city. Truly magnificent. Suitable for elven archers to keep the orcs at bay for at least a week. Alas, I digress again.

The wall is quite impressive. The whole thing is, amazingly, open to tourists who can walk the entire perimeter of the city on top of the wall. About a 6km hike.

For reference, parts of the movie Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang were filmed there. It has that kind of quaint European flair.

We had a grand time despite the cold and our inability to locate the English speaking tour that the websites assured us (they promised, darnit) would leave from the markplatz at 2pm.

I should also single out our impromptu visit to the medieval crime museum. We squeezed this in because Tess is currently fascinated by mystery books and wants to be a detective when she grows up. The Medieval Crime Museum might more properly be referred to as the Medieval Torture and Execution Museum. Very cool and tasteful but not as appropriate to the 5fordhams clientele as we expected when we forked over our 10 euros. Despite (or perhaps because of) this miscalculation, my investment was more then returned as I watched Piper rush the kids past a really cool display of executioners' swords.

Click on the photo below for a link to some pictures.