Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Today we had a Christmas brunch at our church. We ate a nice breakfast and listened to some Christmas music. The three wise men gave each kid a Kinderegg, an orange, and a candy cane. After the brunch we drove to Rothenburg ob der Tauber for their Christmas market. This is the one market everyone says is a must see. The town looks like old style Germany with its half timber houses.

The kids are taking a break in front of St. George's fountain, while Stewart reads through the Rick Steves guide book of the market square. I am guessing the glass case is to winterize the fountain.

We are walking down the stairs in the Town Hall.

Nutcrackers greet visiters in front of every Käthe Wohlfahrt store. I noticed three nutcrackers within about 2 blocks of each other. Rothenburg is the Christmas village and Käthe Wohlfahrt is the Christmas store. The animatronic stuffed animals were very cute. They each were doing silly things.

We walked through the Christmas museum. Cassidy learned that they used to hang presents on the trees. I learned that they would sometimes hang sausages and cheese on the tree. I knew it was common to hang nuts, apples and cookies, but not cheese! Thomas liked the huge wooden pyramids. We learned that miners were the first to make them. The pyramids were not made for Christmas with Nativity scenes until later. They first depicted the life of miners, weddings and their work life. We spend a long time in the museum. The museum exited into a major Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas store. The kids are watching the skiers and and sledders go down the hill on the Christmas decorations. Cassidy and Zachary later posed with the biggest nutcracker I had ever seen. Then Stewart told me that photos were not allowed in the store. I could understand why. The store had narrow aisles and a lot of stuff. I could see visitors taking hundreds of pictures and clogging the aisles to the rest of us.


























We stayed in the museum and store so long, it was dark when we came out. This is Stewart. Cassidy had to learn about Rothenburg for a Girl Scout fun patch she wanted to earn. We walked through an armor store and were drawn to a Star Wars chess set. The store was filled with swords and daggers, Renaissance clothes and armor. We also found Kingdoms and Castles Lego sets, we are in Germany after all.

Schneeballen are the specialty around here. Or at least so it seems since every backery had them. And several of them had Schneeball in its name. We tried the Weihnachts Schneeball and one with cinnamon and sugar. There were way too many to choose from, I think I will have to try making these at home.

One of the activities for Cassidy's patch was to walk the wall. We found the wall a few times, but didn't see a way up. Then on our way back to the car we tried one last spot. Stewart and Cassidy took a walk on the wall, while I took the boys back to the car.