Going down the Romantischer Strasse (the Romantic Road)

We went to bed really early last night (actually that was Friday night....this post being for Saturday). Leo conked out about 5:30 and I'm not sure when I went to bed...maybe 7:30...I know it was still light outside because I had to close the drapes in the room. We both woke up around 1:30. Leo went back to sleep around 2:00 and I never did get back to sleep. I was poring over maps, planning the route we would take today. I was too excited for the adventure to begin! So I was showered, dressed, and totally packed before Leo woke up at 4:45. (This is HIGHLY unusual!!) We checked out of the room at 5:30 AM and they said that a continental breakfast was included, so we went. Normally continental breakfasts in the states aren't worth bothering about, but here...well, let's say Holiday Inn has redeemed itself (at least in Germany). It was a breakfast where I thought I died and went to fruhstuck (breakfast) heaven!! (sorry, I can't insert the umlauts in the German words). The breakfast had whole grain brotchen, cheese, meat cutlets, hot hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, tomatoes, fruits, yogurts, espresso coffee, cereals. Here's a picture of my plate:




And let's not forget the piece de resistance...a tiny package of Nutella (1 teaspoon) on a corner of the whole wheat roll. Vaht a country!

Leo had a croissant with salami and cheese and another with strawberry and apricot jam. He also had some yogurt, tomatoes, and cucumbers. He was in hog heaven, too!!

We finished up breakfast and the shuttle was waiting for us. The driver very efficiently and politely took us to the rental car terminal at the airport. There we got our car...they didn't have a Mercedes like we were supposed to get, but instead we got (and you kids will love this!) a Volvo. Of course it wasn't of the vintage of the Volvos you all had (1984). Here's a photo of it:



Spiffy, eh?

At the rental place they just gave us the keys and we went to the garage and could have driven off...but we couldn't figure out how to switch the GPS system in the car to English so we had to call them for help (we were still in the garage). It was pre-programmed in Portuguese and the guy that came to help us was from Columbia, with a German accent, and speaking to us in English (sort of). Furthermore he had a speech impediment, so it took awhile to understand him. Finally we (together) figured out how to switch to English and so off we went.

It was a fairly rude awakening for Leo to exit the airport and jump onto the autobahn where people drive like bats out of hell. We hunkered down in the slow lane (the far right) and did pretty well. It was much nicer when we got off of the autobahn in Wurzburg and got onto the Romantischer Strasse (the scenic route) and a 2 lane highway...much better! The scenery was beautiful along the way:



We happened across a cute little town and meandered through the narrow streets. There was a huge castle there, but we just looked at it from the outside...we didn't want to wait for the tour. We stopped at a little cafe and got zwetchenkuchen (plum kuchen) with a cup of coffee that could stand up on its own! Here's Leo eating his first zwetchenkuchen:



As we were at this cafe, the old church there (built in the 1500's) started ringing the tower bells...it was 10:00. It went on for over 5 minutes and it was just one of those things that just made you smile!! Here are some pictures of the old church and other photos of this town.














This last photo is when the church started chiming with the bells, the local people who lived in buildings across the street from the church, opened their previously closed windows so that they could hear the bells better. That's pretty neat that they live right next door to the church and hear the bells chime on every waking hour of the day, and yet they don't take it for granted...they want to hear more!

We never did find out the name of the little town (actually, we didn't want to ask anyone there because we thought it would sound really lame!). So we left, not knowing the name, but it sure was a nice place!

After we left there, on part of the route, I was trying to tell Leo about one of the towns along the way...I think it was Scheckenbach. The first time I said it, Leo tried to repeat it back, but it wasn't close. I repeated it more slowly and he still didn't get within range of repeating it. After about 5 or 6 times I finally realized that they were all the wrong sounds for Leo...with his hearing loss on good days (and in English) whenever someone says an "s" sound, it sound to Leo as if they are lisping. You can only imagine what the German "s"s along with the ch and ck sounded like...and so it struck us both so funny when we both realized this that we laughed ourselves silly!

Ya know, I'm going to send off this post and continue with another post of the rest of today. I don't know if there's a limit as to how many photos you can have in one posting, so I'll play it safe.




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Location:From Wurzburg to Nordlingen