Today we stopped at two of them - Nordlingen and Rothenburg. Nordlingen is city that was hit by a crater many thousands of years ago and was filled with feetile land and so was created out of a hole. The symbol of this city is the pig because back in the middle ages the pig was food for the people but also a sign of good luck.
Once there was a knight who was up to no good and was asking the towns people for $ but he was always turned down. He decided to rob the town instead, so he had bribed a guardsman to leave the fortified wall open one evening so that he could get in.
Well, this pig was walking around in the town, minding his own business when he had noticed that the gate was opened. Along came a lovely young lady who noticed the pig was going in and out of the gate and she started to yell for the guards. The guards then closed the gate and figured that the pig helped save the town. Still to this day from 10 to 12 pm, every 1/2 hour a man calls out, in German, that everything is as it should be. Cute legend isn't it? Really the city was built in the 16th century and had a huge wall placed around it so that only the Protestants could live inside. Hence the massive church within is Lutheran.
Then we went to Rothenburg, one of our favourite places, and walked around for 3 hours. We visited the pension where we had stayed for 6 days three yrs ago and walked some of the small and quiet streets of the back town. We took some extra pictures because the last time we were there was in the winter.
We made it to our Frankfurt hotel around 6:00 and ate at 7 but, by the time you do all this, it's always so late and we are very tired. Now we need a holiday to rest up from the holiday.
Tomorrow we head off by train to stay with cousin Lili and Dieter. Looking forward to a rest.
