Europe Trip, The Final Chapter: Rothenburg

Probably my favorite portion of the trip was the three days we spent in one of the nicest little towns in Europe, Rothenburg, Germany.  The history of this town is pretty incredible.  During the Holy Roman Empire, it was a major Imperial city that rested along two major trade routes.  As such, it was a very prosperous and wealthy city.  However, around 1630, a major invading army camped right in front of the city.  The army requested leave to enter the city, and when the city refused, it was completely sacked.  From that time forward, Rothenburg's economy stagnated and the city did not advance in any way.  Which was unfortunate for the people who lived there for the next couple of hundred years, but great for us!

As a result of the lack of funds to improve the city or develop in any way, almost the entire city was preserved as it was in the 1630s.  It wasn't until the late 1800s that tourism started to help the city rebound economically, and it has only improved since.  Now, using the revenue generated from donations from around the world along with from tourists, the city has been fully restored and repaired.  

One neat little anecdote: during the final months of WWII, as the Allies pushed into Germany, a large Nazi army retreated into Rothenburg where they entrenched themselves.  Hitler had ordered that army, and every other Nazi army, to stand their ground and fight to the last man, which order essentially doomed Rothenburg to destruction by the Allies' bombs and artillery shelling.  At the same time, knowing of the Nazi army's location, the US Army was planning a bombing and shelling attack against Rothenburg.  However, when one of the Vice Secretaries of Defense heard of the plans to bomb the city, he personally intervened to stop it and offer the Nazi army a chance to surrender first.  Of course, the Nazi army had orders never to surrender.  However, on the day that the US Army approached the city under a white flag to parlay, the Nazi general commanding the army at Rothenburg happened to be away.  The colonel who was left in charge loved the city and therefore disobeyed Hitler's command and surrendered to the Allies, thus sparing the city from certain destruction.  

Okay, now back to our trip.  Heather did an amazing job and found a quaint little hotel that was perfect.  It was built around the late 1600s, and the interior decoration all had a medieval air.  But thankfully, our hotel room had modern plumbing and even A/C, which is rare in Germany.  Even better, it had two rooms, so we could put the girls down early at night.  We loved our hotel!

Rothenburg had several things worth seeing.  There was a small cathedral with a very famous wood carving inside of the last supper.  It was made 100s of years ago and is famous for its intricate details, and I believe the whole sculpture was carved from one piece of wood.

One of our favorite things was the crime and punishment museum.   The museum was four or so floors packed full of records of how they enacted punishments in their town for the past several hundred years.  They had punishments for EVERYTHING, like being a tattle-tale, gossiping, having unclean thoughts, defaulting on debts.  And many of the punishments included being chained to a pole in the main square and wearing a metal mask of shame.  It was funny to watch, but made us so glad we did not live in those days.

One of the coolest thing we did was the Night Watchman's tour.  This guy starts a tour of the city at sundown and walks around for an hour showing you unique parts of the town and talking about the history of the city.  It was fascinating, and he had a great sense of humor, too.  Thankfully, the girls were quiet as we carried them on our backs for the entire time.

The final thing we did was browse through the two or three ENORMOUS Christmas village stores.  The biggest store took us literally 3 hours to walk through.  It was huge packed full of awesome Christmas decorations and ornaments.  It even had a museum in the middle of the store showing the history of certain Christmas decorations and traditions.  Heather and I both are kind of suckers for Christmas stores: for us, they're very nostalgic and magical.  So this store was one of our favorite things in Rothenburg.

But despite all the above things we did, more than anything else, we loved simply meandering through the city and coming across quaint streets, interesting shops, and cute buildings.  Here's some pics of us around the city.

And finally, here are some scenes from the city.

As a final note on our trip, I wanted to show one last thing.  Heather is huge into wall clocks.  Well, this trip was definitely a success from her point of view because she bought three unique clocks all from different countries.  This alone made the trip worthwhile for her.  (You're notice she didn't buy a German clock, but that was only because she already owned one.)

Europe Trip, Part V: Prague

Heather and I have always heard amazing things about Prague.  And since we were only a mere five hour drive away, and Rochelle and Jeremy planned to head that way, we felt it was our destiny to go.  So we did, and we spent three wonderful days touring the old city.

Neither Heather nor I knew much about Prague before we got there, and so we enjoyed reading all the tourist information about the city.  Unfortunately, we've since forgotten most of it, but here are some pictures of the most historical places around the city.

 The below two figures were not historical, but they would not let Heather go until she paid them a ridiculous amount of money (something like $4).  It was quite the scam, and somewhat funny after the fact.


The most historical part of Prague is the astrological clock, which was installed a long time ago by a famous person.  It was amazing to behold.

Here is Rochelle in the main square getting silly with Elli and Liza.  I love the face of the old man in the background who is looking on in the first picture.

 Here is a shot of the old government palace from the most famous bridge.  The bridge was really neat.  It was lined on both sides by famous statues of important figures and significant events that occurred during critical periods of history, and each one was done by a well-known artist.

 Prague's main cathedral, although there were at least three other huge churches throughout the city.  This was one particularly historical.
 

Not far from the palace was a beautiful lookout point over the city, where we took a few pictures. 

While touring the palace buildings, Heather and I took turns going upstairs in one of the main buildings.  While it was Heather's turn, I shot a lot of pictures of Elli, who was posing and showing off her modeling skills.  She's such an adorable ham!  Wonder where she gets it from?!

In case you did come to learn something about Prague on our blog today, I will tell you one interesting story about this castle.  Prague is the defenestration capitol of the world.  If you don't know what a defenestration is, it's a fancy word for when important people are thrown out a window at a critical time.  A defenestration occurred two or three times at this castle, when angered Protestant hussites threw notable catholic reps for the emperor out a tall castle window.  Apparently, all those thrown actually survived.  The catholic story was that they were saved by angels, the protestant is that they survived by landing in a pile of horse manure.  Heather heard a guide talk about how two other times catholics were thrown from that same window and each time something random made them survive like a tree or something else.  So random.  One of the victims was later given the title "Baron of the Highfall."  I think they should have found a new window.

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Now to be serious for a minute.  We spent one morning touring the old Jewish quarter of town.  The oldest synagogue in Europe was there.  Here is a picture of one of the graveyards.  Jews were confined to live in this very small area in the former Prague Jewish ghetto for more than 600 years.  They were forced to bury their dead on top of each other since the city would not grant them additional ground for their graveyards.  Very sad. 

Nearby was a museum that had walls of names for all the people that were killed during WWII. In the upper portion, it housed some of the art that children did when they were in the Terezin ghetto/prison near Prague in the middle of the war.  Heather actually did a factually based play called "I never saw another Butterfly" about children in those ghettos and how the art gave them a voice when they had nothing else.  Heather was especially moved by this area.     Here is an excerpt about the drawings:

"A total of 15,000 children under the age of fifteen passed through Terezin (Theresienstadt) Concentration Camp/Ghetto between the years 1942-1944; less than 100 survived. A collection of poems and drawings from the children did survive, with the collection known as "…I never saw another butterfly…"  A woman –Friedl Dicker Brandeis– dedicated her time during the internment teaching stealthily art and paintingas evasive therapy for many of those kids. Before leaving Terezín for going to her final destiny, she rescued 4.500 drawings. For children at Terezín, drawing opened up the path to memories of the world from which they had been uprooted, as well as enabling them to see and depict the sad and horrifying realties of life. Above all, drawing transported them to a world of fantasy and pure imagination where good prevailed over evil, free will and well-being reigned supreme and there was paradise on earth. Their drawings expressed the constant hope for a safe return home, often featuring highways and cross-roads with sign-posts to Prague. Only a small proportion of the Terezín children, however, were to see their hopes fulfilled. The vast majority were transported eastward and later perished in the gas chambers of Auschwitz."