Fairy Tale Villages and Schneeballen

August 9, 2010

Fairy Tale Villages and Schneeballen

The Romantic Road, das Romantische Strasse, in Bavaria is a definite must-see. Thanks, Andrea and Trevor, for suggesting that we include it on this trip. This route runs between Fussen in the south and Wurzberg in the north and connects a series of tiny medieval villages, farms and rolling hills. In the 1950's, the local towns cooperated to create this scenic route for tourists. The villages at which we stopped were walled cities, complete with well-preserved ramparts. We were immersed in the Middle Ages today.

Our first stop was Nordlingen, a town built on the site of a meteorite crater that hit the earth 15 million years ago. The circular wall of the city was constructed on the crater's edge making it perfectly round. We walked along the covered wall and poked around the town, exploring some of the shops in colourful, picturesque high gabled buildings. We bought a couple of Schneeballen, but wondered what all the fuss was about. The ones we had were just strips of pie pastry rolled into a ball, baked, and dusted with sugar.

Next stop: Dinkelsbuhl. Cuter than cute. Think Chemainus, multiply it by at least 1000 in terms of qualilty, then add hundreds of years of fascinating history, a moat, a wall, towers, cobblestones and window boxes and you have Dinkelsbuhl.

On to our destination for the night--Rothenburg ob der Tauber. It is touted as the best of the best on the Romantic Road, but we were a little disappointed. The town's historical value is outshone by the tourist shops which dominate the main streets. Beer steins, cuckoo clocks, Hummel figurines and Christmas decorations, all at inflated prices crowd every shop window.

We followed Rick Steves' advice to park outside the city wall and we dragged our luggage over the cobblestones several blocks to our hotel, (imagine the sound of that) only to find that the hotel had a secure parking garage, for a price, of course. It is a lovely old medieval building, our room is large, and beautifully decorated and has a balcony overlooking a small garden and a jumble of tiled rooftops.

As I took my estimated one hundred and seventy second picture of a narrow cobblestoned street today with much less enthusiasm than the first one hundred, I realized that we are just tired. Hips ache, legs are sore and feet hurt. We have driven over 6000 km and it feels like we have walked just as far, mostly uphill or on stairs. If Rothenburg had been one of our first sights, I suspect we would have been enthralled.

At dinner we saved room for the fancier Schneeballen we had seen, bought the chocolate and marzipan one that Andrea had recommended, but still couldn't see the attraction. We are off across the country to Bruges in Belgium tomorrow. Chocolate, here we come!