freiburg and rothenburg, germany

time to play a bit of catch up again!

Freiburg was really great.. our hike into the black forest wasn't much of a hike at all.. we just ended up going up to the lookout tower and hanging out there for a while and had our picnic that we packed. Afterwards we walked around the town, found some black forest cake (mike had two pieces, lol) and bought a bunch of stuff for a big chicken stirfry dinner.. so good! That night was hilarious.. our hostel had some boardgames, and we had picked up some more wine so we had a blast making up our own rules to these games that we had never played before. Pictionary was the best! It was all in German, so whoever's turn it was would pick one of the words, interpret it best they could and draw it.. lol it was awesome! Then whoever guessed it would go next. We also had fun making fun of Keira's accent hah.. she was a good sport and tried coaching us but we kept sounding british instead of australian..

The next morning mike and I began our series of connections to Rothenburg, and Keira went to Strasbourg (France). We had to change trains three times (and actually got on the wrong train for one of them but realized it just in time!) but finally made it to Rothenburg.. This place was SOO cool.. It's a completely preserved walled medieval town. The wall alone took 400 years to build, and the bed and breakfast we stayed at was 600 years old! It was soo creaky and noisy with every step we took. All the furniture was hand made by the owner. It was very cozy. I can't even describe how cute this town was. You could walk across the whole town, wall to wall, in about 20 minutes. We also climbed the wall and walked all the way around it.. neato! That night we took the Nightwatchman's Tour which was so cool. This guy (the same one from the Rick Steve's show lol) dresses up as the nightwatchman and takes us on a walk of the town, explaining how things were done and the importance of different things. This morning we went to their Medieval Crime and Punishment Museum it was very informative and really cool to learn about the crazy things they used to do to criminals. The even had a "witch catcher".. which is kind of hard to explain, but basically they didn't want to have to touch them, so it was a long iron rod with this collar thing on the end that they would try and get around their neck. The shopping in Rothenburg was also amazing.. sooo many souvenirs and things I wanted to buy but didn't have room for =(

This afternoon we caught a train to Munich (I didn't want to leave there but we had reservations!) which is where we are now. We have a couple day trips planned coming up, one to Fussen for the Neuschwenstein Castle (The one said to have inspired Walt Disney) and another to Bercherstgaden, where Hitler had a hideout called the Crow's Nest. Both should be really cool! We will be in Munich for 3, maybe 4 nights before heading to Berlin for a week.

<3 shanon