Day 4, Fri, Feb 5 - 2017 Germany Tour Inspection Trip

Rothenburg Dom (Cathedral)

Friday, February 5, 2016

Where were we:
- Erfurt
- Rothenburg
- Ulm
- Neu-Ulm
- Ulm

We were departing at 9-9:15 am for our next long day which would take us to Rothenburg and then on to Ulm. We had a lot of driving ahead of us, and a lot of appointments. I woke up at 8:15 am. Showered, packed, and got down to breakfast about 8:35 am. I enjoyed breakfast with, at varying points Amanda, Nick, Andrew, and Sue, before zipping back up to my room to grab my bags so we could load and head out.

The breakfast at Radisson Blu was fabulous. Great selection of meats, cheeses, bread, rolls, pretzels, eggs, sausage, bacon, cereals, and good coffee too. The room is big and nice and has a good view out. A lot of light. They do a good job with breakfast here. 

We were underway for our long drive to Rothenburg by 9:12 am. We had a lot of time to rest and talk on our drive which was actually quite beautiful. We passed through the Thüringerwald and mountains, which had just had a snow. The trees and hills were all freshly snow covered, and it was like being in some sort of German Christmas card.

We also passed through a lot of mountain tunnels. I think at least seven. One was really long. I apologize for not getting the name but, it was pretty impressive seeing and going through so many of these marvels of engineering.

But, somewhere around 11 am, we left the German state of Thüringen and entered northern Bayern (Bavaria). We then proceeded to the old, walled, and high up on the hill city of Rothenburg around 11:35 am. We took a quick loop around it to see the carparks (to know where the coaches were going to pull in) and by 11:43 am, we were out of the car and in the very charming main square with our guide for the day.

Rothenburg

Rothenburg is beautiful. It’s cobblestone streets are filled with colorful, and very old, houses, medieval passages, and lots places to explore. It is not very large, I think our guide said 10 minutes wide by 15 minutes long. Only 11,000 people live there, but between May and December, more than 1,000,000 visit. I want to fact check that number, but that is what he said. February is the slow season so, as such, the town was really ours, but a lot of places were indeed closed.

Rothenburg is also a walled city overlooking a huge valley. There are no shortages of views here, everywhere you turn there is something interesting. On the tour, we will be stopping here for a good chunk of time as we transit between Erfurt and Ulm. It is a little more than half way between the two cities. Our plan is for a lunch stop - with a fair amount of time - and, for those who would like, guided tours. It should be a nice afternoon here and it will break up an otherwise very long journey.

Our tour was quite extensive and we all liked this town very much. We ended with everyone trying the local pastry delicacy, the Schneeball (a snowball), before getting lunch at about 1:13 pm at one of the four open restaurants in the town. I had a very interesting venison ravioli. Venison is apparently the thing to eat in these parts, so, when in Rothenburg. It was good though. Andrew got some sort of meat special all center around venison, which he seemed to really enjoy. 

The Rothenburg view and the maestro.
I have two puzzles of this shot at home

I didn’t note what time we left Rothenburg, but I want to guess it was around 2:30 pm or so. We were headed to Ulm and had another meeting and hotel inspection schedule for 4:30 pm.

Ulm

We arrived in Ulm at 4:07 pm and immediately checked in to our rooms. We were staying in the Maritim Ulm, which is a big, big hotel right on the banks of the Danube. It stands very high in Ulm so the fews from the hotel are fabulous. I think there were 16 or 17 floors - the restaurant was on the top. The hotel is very big, the rooms are big, very clean, and there is a lot gold everywhere. It sort of reminded me of a Marriott or Hilton or something but from 1996 or something. It’s due for a little modernization in the décor I think, but it’s still quite nice. Someone’s definition or style in terms of classy hotel and beauty is a little different than mine. But, the rooms are very large, comfy, the service is good, everything is very clean.

The Ulmer Münster (Ulm Minster)

Our inspection was rather typical of our hotel inspections at this point. See accessible rooms, see family rooms, see double rooms sharing a bed, see rooms for two people not sharing a bed, see a suite, check out the speciality rooms. There was an amusing interaction we had with our sales manager about Legoland and their need for rooms in July 2017, but I’ll save that tale for another day. This hotel does have a really nice, pool, by the way, and it seems is right next to a beer garden - but you’ll find tons of great places to eat in Ulm.

Once the tour was completed, we went up to the top of the hotel restaurant just to see it and see the view of the incredible Ulm Minster (with its gothic highest spire in the world), and the sun setting over Ulm, Neu-Ulm, and the Danube. It was incredibly beautiful.

Here’s a geography note for you.

Ulm is really two cities, but is small (120,000 or so). It is right on the Danube where the Danube is moving quickly but quite smaller in comparison to its size in Budapest. On the north side of the city is Ulm itself. This is where the medieval sections are and its main Altstadt. Our hotel is here two. There are a lot of bridges crossing it to, wait for it, Neu-Ulm. This is technically another city in its own right, but they share a community. Think one being Westerly and one being Pawcatuck, a few centuries older! Neu-Ulm is the “newer” side and commerce center side (Neu = New).

Now, here is some more for you, Ulm is the German state of Baden-Wittenburg. Neu-Ulm is in Bavaria. So, again, like our little state border. Our border is the Pawcatuck River, there’s is the Danube. Both just as famous!!!

Our plans tonight were for dinner literally just across the river from our hotel at a beer garden/restaurant/brewery place we were going to go scout as the scene for our farewell dinner. Neither Nick nor Sue had ever been there, so this would be an inspection of the truest sort. We were also going to have a big meeting about the tour itself and things we had seen, liked, didn’t, talking about each day and how - as of right now - it would run. Lots of things. But, our reservation wasn’t until 8 pm and we were not gathering back together until 7:45 pm, which was about 2 hours and 40 minutes away.

Andrew and I decided to head out into the city to give ourselves our own tour and get lost with the Altstadt streets.

The restored Ulm Minster has
the tallest Gothic spire in Europe.

The walk to find the city center was very easy. Firstly, the Danube is sort of your border, right where our hotel is, so you can walk along the Danube and enter the core at a lot of points, or just explore and walk in from one of the main streets. It takes about 5 minutes to start to “get to things” but the walk is very lovely, safe, clean, and easy. And, if you needed a lift for some reason, but I doubt it. There is a bus stop right outside of our hotel that willt take you in or a cheap taxi. The other thing is the walk along the Danube, I imagine, will be great in the summer. I could see the charm of this place right away. 

Our walk through the very busy streets took us up, eventually to Münsterplatz where the enormous Ulm Minister - with its incredible spire - stood. Andrew had a great line as we looked at, “they really know how to do cathedrals here…this is a cathedral.” I must say it is something to see. A lot of work is going on with it right now, which is the case with most cathedrals, but it doesn’t take away from it at all. The main square around the cathedral and really on all the streets that sort of wheel off of it are filled with shops, restaurants, and activity. A lot of this area, near the minister, is relatively new construction, this area got hit hard in the war (apparently by the US, but the US helped rebuild a lot of Ulm), but the rebuilds created a really good inner core. Only a few odd buildings here and there.

I imagine in the summer Münsterplatz, which inself is enormous, is filled with restaurants and outdoor tables and art and lot of other life and activity we just don’t see in the depth of winter.

Ah, but there was life, and we were about to join it.

After stops quickly in the department stores of Müller and Kaufhaus Galleria (you can get lots of great things here, cheaper than other places in terms of cloths, toys, candy, food - we’ll tell you all about it — other thing too, make sure we tell you about the shopping bag thing, you have to ask for, and then buy one, they won’t give you one), we kept wandering around Ulm and decided to meander a different way around the Münster to head back.

The Schalmein band! Awesome!

Well, it was the Fasching celebration night in Ulm and, gathering in Münsterplatz were thousands of people, all in costumes. There were bands, there were groups of families, there were local men’s and women’s clubs, there were folks who looked like the Morris Men and others who looked like the Ladies of the Rolling Pin. And there was a lot of joyous celebration everywhere. 

These folks were lining up for this crazy, celebratory, and community wide Fasching parade around Ulm. They were going to scare away the evil spirits and bring joy and life to the city through this parade.

At first Andrew and I just sort of watched this amazing thing assemble, then we heard a band with a weird sounding set of instruments and drums, so we went over to check it out. It was a Schalmein band, a huge one, and we listened to them play, Andrew talked to them, and, at that point, suddenly, the Minister bells starting ringing like crazy, and the parade kicked off.

When you see a parade, and you aren’t really there to watch it, and you discover it is about to parade all around the city and through all the pretty back streets and medieval blocks you haven’t see yet, and folks are in costume and there is a Schalmein band behind, you don’t leave…you join them! So, yes, Andrew and I snuck into the parade group and walked all around Ulm in celebration of Fasching.

I cannot properly put this particular experience into words. Truth was, you just sort of had to be there to see all of this and experiencing it. It was great, great fun. We went the entire route, departing as the Schalmein band was playing Madonna’s Like a Prayer. That was something I never thought I’d hear from a Schalmein band. Actually, I didn’t know what a Schalmein was until we saw them, so…there you have it. Just a great experience. We felt like we were Ulmers.

On our walk around, we did pass a lot of really neat restaurants and old buildings over a brook we crossed. I’ll have to study a map to remember where that was specifically. 

Andrew wins the navigation prize for this evening - yes, he wins - because we left the party to try to get back to the hotel. We were both confused because we crossed a river of some sort. Andrew quickly identified that the river we cross was not the Danube and we had to reorient ourselves properly before finding our way back home. Andrew was indeed correct as our little walk - without care or thought of where we were or going - really twisted us around. I will admit, it confused me. Good job, maestro!

After a 5-10 minute walk or so along the fast moving Danube we made it back to our hotel and found Nick and Amanda in the bar. We waited a few minutes for Sue who had dozed off and then headed across the river to Barfusser, the site of our dinner tonight and potential site of our farewell dinner and celebration in July of 2017.

The restaurant, which in the summer has a large outdoor area too, was great and we think will be a great fit. We have inside and outside options, good food options, good beer and other beverages, it seems to be a good place for us to have a big event at, the staff was very accommodating during our visit as well. Seems to be a great choice.

Our dinner was an enjoyable one, and we had a lot of discussion about all aspects of the tour. There are lot of things we are still working on, and a lot of things we have to decide on, but it was great to have this conversation with all of us together. Things can still and might change, but it is clear that all of us are going to work our tales off to build this tour so that is an incredible and life changing experience for all our singers and followers. We are working very hard on this for everyone, but I have full confidence we will pull it off. This sort of tour summit meeting I think, ultimately will help achieve that quite a bit.

Amanda, Nick, Andrew. Tour planning summit.

A good night and busy day behind us, and a few beers later, we headed back to the hotel just about 11:15 pm. It had been a long day. We headed up to our rooms on the 10th floor and then Andrew and I chatted for quite a while about a lot of thoughts and questions and things we had discussed in our planning summit. There is a lot of work still to do, but we are making such great strides.

FaceTime’d with home for a bit and heard all about the snow from the family, also had a quick FaceTime with the Freitas Four in Florida, then worked on some other stuff for a while, before shutting this computer off about 2 am.

Another great day, more to come tomorrow.