Day 9

 Hello!

Well, we made to it Bavaria last night to the town of Rothenburg (see map below). As the weather was turning colder, we decided this would be more of a relaxing portion of the trip. Believe it or not, our goal for this trip was to have it be more relaxing, which is why we decided to visit a bunch of small towns with Christmas Markets rather than large cities where we'd have to walk and travel extensively to see all the sights. We also thought that Luke would enjoy seeing the small towns - but, as it turned out, he has been mostly enjoying his toys, coloring books, snacks, dinosaurs, and TV shows...oh well. 

After a slow morning, we looked outside to see snow dumping down on the town. I stepped outside to gauge what the weather was like, and the wind was whipping up and down the narrow cobble-stone streets. I checked AccuWeather and it said that with the wind chill, the temperature outside was 8 degrees F! 

Regardless, we stomped out confidently into the streets to walk the short distance (maybe 50 steps) to our included breakfast location at the Guesthouse Viktoria just up the street. Up to this point, we had mostly been surviving on grocery store food and Christmas Market pastries for breakfasts, so to have a real breakfast consisting of meat, cheese, pretzels, eggs, fruit, and coffee (most importantly), was amazing! We will be looking forward to this for two more days. Even Luke seemed to love it. Once we were finished we stepped outside and quickly made our way back to the B&B through the heavy snow and wind. 

After relaxing some more back at our place, I decided to layer up and step outside to explore the town. When we originally booked this trip, we were looking forward to seeing the world-famous Rothenburg Christmas Markets. However, the week before we left, it was announced that all of the Christmas Markets in Bavaria would be cancelled due to yet another spike in Coronavirus rates throughout the region. We were bummed initially and debated re-routing our trip, but a fortunate consequence is that we essentially have the whole town all to ourselves (or so it feels like), yet all the restaurants and shops are fully open (assuming you can show a QR code to provide your vaccination status). I walked through some of the major streets, town square, and around some of the city walls - with only and handful of other people to be seen. All bundled up, I was much warmer until I slipped on one of the city wall stairs and fell right on a muddy puddle.... To make matters worse, I soon found out that I had scraped a finger during this fall, and in the process of adjusting my face mask, had smeared blood all over it (the mask). Despite this embarrassing act, I was thankful that no one was around to see it, and it was great to see the beautiful town completely covered in snow. 

Back at the B&B, I relaxed with Jessica and Luke before we all went out on a quick excursion around the town. This ended up being short-lived though because Luke was getting very mad at the wind and snow, yelling "NO!, NO!" every time we turned a corner and the wind was in his face. This at least spanned the gap until naptime which, then, was relaxing for everyone. With Luke fast asleep, Jessica started watching a movie and I enjoyed a few beers that I had purchased from a store earlier while wearing my wet, muddy pants and bloody face mask. Before naptime was over, I went back out into the snowy cold to see the town some more and walk the other half of the town walls (a centuries-old fortification that nearly encompasses the entire town). While walking around the walls, you come across a tower/gate every so often. Each one had a stairs to climb the towers, but because of the Covid situation and the weather, they were all closed. Still, it was very fun to walk around the town with all the snow coming down. 

We kicked-back some more at the B&B until dinner-time was approaching. Tonight, we had reservations at Zur Holl restaurant - a very highly-rated, traditional Bavarian spot. We braved the cold and wind yet again. Thankfully, it wasn't snowing any more so Luke was more tolerant during the walk over. At the restaurant, we were quickly seated in a cozy room right next to a fully-stoked wood fireplace. For dinner, Jessica had salmon over a lobster risotto and I had the rack of lamb with vegetables and potatoes. Luke had a little bit of everything. In the end, we were both very pleased and very full! 

After the walk back, we could tell Luke was getting tired so we put him to bed, and now we are just relaxing some more in our warm and spacious B&B. Until tomorrow!