We both slept pretty well last night, hopefully we can shake our head colds soon, they are more aggravating than anything, and the cold, rainy weather certainly does not help. We slept in until about 7:00 AM, then got up, got dressed and went to the hotel breakfast. It was nice to relax a little, we had a decent amount of time before we needed to head to the Munich Train station for the train ride to Wurzburg. This morning, we awoke to partly cloudy skies, but soon it turned cloudy again, which has been the pattern in most of Austria and Germany on the trip so far, it is either cloudy in the morning and sunny in the afternoon, or just cloudy all day.
After breakfast, we finished packing up our suitcases, and checked out. We decided to just walk to the train station instead of taking the Underground like we did when we arrived. After looking at a map and now knowing exactly where the hotel was in relation tot he train station, it did not make sense to take the underground. It was only about a twice as far walk to go to the station directly than to walk to the underground stop that was in the opposite direction from the station, and take the one stop ride. Plus, we had more than enough time for the walk. It took us about 15 minutes to walk to the station, and we went inside to find our platform.
Train to Wurzburg from Munich
We actually boarded the train early since it was alreadfy at the station, originating here for the route to Frankfurt. We are getting off at the second stop on the route, Wurzburg, where we will rent our car for the next 7 days of travel. We do not think we will spend any time in Wurzburg, but that depends on the weather. There is not a lot to see there other than the Cathedral, and it is closed for renovations until 2012. There is also a Residenze (palace) with some gardens. As we headed north to Wurzburg on the train, the weather became extremely foggy, hopefully it will clear soon.
We arrived in Wurzburg on time and exited the train station. The rental car site was not at the train station, and our original plan was to take a taxi to the rental location. We started to look around the outside of the station at the bus route maps, and found one going to the street where the rental car agency was located, so we bought two tickets and boarded our bus. We did not have a copy of the bus route, nor did they have one in the bus like most cities do, so we got out the GPS to track our progress toward the rental car agency location, which I had loaded up into the GPS before we left. Well, we started off going just like the GPS directions indicated, but soon the bus went in another direction. Not sure that we were actually going to get there, we hopped off the bus at the next stop which seemed to be close to the rental car location. Unfortunately, we had gotten off the bus in a neighborhood that did not have through streets, even though the GPS said it did. After a little walking on dead end streets, we went back to the bus stop and looked at the bus route posted on the sign. It did not make any sense either, even though the street we needed to be on had three stops named for it on the route. The problem was that the route map split into two routes that did not connect at the end. Puzzled, we decided the best thing to do was to catch the next bus that was identical to the the one we just got off. The next bus came by and after a little interpretation on the street name, the bus driver indicated the bus did go that way. It was really funny that it was the same bus driver we had originally, but on his next run. He did not make us pay another fare, most likely amused at our situation. The bus actually went out a gate at the end of the neighborhood that the bus activated with a remote to open. We would have never gotten out walking, evidently the neighborhood was located entirely within a security barrier or fence. Eventually, after a very circuitous route, we did end up on the correct street, and we got off the bus. We just got off one stop early, at the second stop with the street name we wanted, and had to walk a couple of blocks downhill, eventually arriving closer to the third stop on that street, which was almost at the same address on the street as the rental car agency. I guess maybe we should have taken the taxi, or not used the GPS, but we learned we just should have trusted in the bus route, and gotten off at the third stop on our street.
Finally arriving at the Europcar Rental agency, we got our car, loaded our baggage, started up the GPS and headed to Rothenburg where we will spend two nights.
Our Rothenburg Hotel, the Hotel Goldener Greifen
We found Rothenburg without any problem, but some of the streets in the old town appeared to be one way, or at least only wide enough for a car going one direction. Some were pedestrian only at certain time periods during the day. We finally made it to the hotel, and they directed us to their parking lot, and we checked in. It is a very pretty hotel, not fancy, but with a lot of local and historical flare. We did a little laundry since it is a little colder here, and the radiator heating is on in the rooms. The heaters make very good clothes dryers, so we actually did a couple of heavier shirts and pants knowing we have two days for them to dry.
We then headed out to see the town. Again, it turned cloudy and cooler this afternoon. We were joking that “Germany” must mean “cold and rainy” in English. We went to the St. Jakobs Church, which is undergoing a lot of restoration work outside, was was beautiful on the inside. They had a wooden gilded altar from the 1500’s and another intricate wood carving done in the 1600’s that took about 8 years to complete. We walked around the town wall and then headed for an early dinner.
With all of the train riding, rental car incident and driving to Rothenburg, we had forgotten all about lunch, so we were hungry. We went to a nice and quaint restaurant called Burgerskeller, and had some good food and beer. After that, we walked around a few shops waiting until 8:00 PM to do the Night Watchman’s tour, which is an English speaking tour of the city given by a man dressed up as one of the original town night watchmen. He was very entertaining, and we learned a lot about the history of the town. Of course, it started to rain right before the tour, so we all walked around in our rain gear listening to the night watchman. Is is no wonder everyone around here, including us, has colds.
The Night Watchman’s Tour
We headed back to the hotel to work on the blog since we discovered when we checked in that that they do have Wi-Fi here at the hotel. They must have recently added it as an amenity because it was not listed in the original booking information, The only problem is that we have to do it outside our room, the wireless signal is not strong enough in the room.
NOTE: We are posting some pictures to a Photo Album, look to the right hand side of the main page of this trip’s blog, and you should see a Photo Album listed under the pages. It may take a couple of days to load the photos, and they are not heavily edited, so there may be some redundancy, but we wanted to get more pictures loaded