Old Retired Guy Blog

July 2 - 4, 2010

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Rothenburg ob der Tauber (Page 2 of 2)

Rothenburg is a rather popular tourist town, but most of the tourists don't stay here.  So, in the evening when the tour busses leave and in the morning before they arrive, the town is quite quiet.  To avail ourselves of that quiet we got up early and walked around town before breakfast. 

The town was especially beautiful in the morning light.  The pastel buildings, many with very colorful flower-filled window boxes, were more vibrant in the morning sun.  The problem is that I wanted to photograph it all.  Sometimes the simplest scenes are the hardest to capture.

Even in a small medieval town like Rothenburg you shouldn't ignore the churches.  One that I thought was very impressive was St. Jakobs Cathedral.  It was undergoing restoration so the outside was covered with scaffolding but that did not detract from the beauty of the inside. 

In addition to the usual towering vaulted ceiling and colorful stained-glass windows, St. Jakobs contains intricately carved wooden altars and statues, the two most famous being the High Altar, also known as the Twelve Apostles Altar, which dates back to 1466; and the Holy Blood Altar, which was carved in 1500-1505.  The Holy Blood Altar is a depiction of the Last Supper.  It was constructed so that Judas could be removed during the celebration of Easter.

  
Left:  The Twelve Apostles Altar
Right:  The Holy Blood Altar

In the afternoon we went out for a late lunch/early dinner.  We wanted to find a place with a television so that we could watch Germany versus Argentina in the quarter-final of the World Cup games.  It turned out that it was quite easy to find a place with a television showing the game, but it was difficult to find one that had room for us!  We finally found one where we sat near the door and could see the TV in the distance.  The game started out slowly, but as we dined the pace picked up and Germany won the match 4-0.  Soon we could hear car horns blaring and a lot of crowd noise.  Even in a small town a large crowd turned out to celebrate. 

The residents of Rothenburg celebrate a German soccer victory.

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Read Part 5 of the Anderson's European Vacation