Rothenburg (Oct 11)

Today we rode the bus about an hour from our docking at Wurzberg to the medieval town of Rothenburg (towns ending in "burg" are forts, and ending in "berg" are in hills/mountains).   Rothenburg (pronounced "rottenburg", there is no "th" sound in German) supposedly survived WWII mostly intact.  Our guide Elke gave us an hour tour of this town that goes back to the middle ages and has a 30 foot wall all around it (except for the part protected by the river).   Here is Elke showing us the "front door" to the city

 some residences

 the pipe organ at the back of the Lutheran cathedral (note the seated person in the lower middle...these pipes are gigantic)

 the cathedral

 a wooden alter piece at the rear of the cathedral

Fear of fires led to upper stories sometimes having the classic gothic wooden structure but using stone for the lower floors

Some beautiful foliage in town

We hiked about half of the walkway around the top of the city wall which had holes thru which to shoot arrows

and toured the amazing-large KatheWohlfarte "Christmas Shop" (too bad I just wasn't in the Christmas shopping mood)

and finally we visited the Criminal Justice museum--we only had one hour, probably could have spent 3-4 hrs.  It included some interesting torture devices such as this spiked chair

 and these "shame masks" which offenders had to wear around town. 

The museum also had a Martin Luther exhibit that we had to rush thru

but he had something to do with witchcraft in relation to the church (here is a broomstick and a couple demon masks)

We got back on our bus and met our ship downstream, heading for Bamburg tomorrow.  Temperatures are still in the upper 70's, amazing!  Saturday we will change ships near Nurnberg.