Rothenburg & Nurenberg

On Day 5, perhaps to allow continued recovery from the DFH, Mrs. Campbell and Philip gave us the whole morning and most of the afternoon to discover Rothenburg on our own. Much shopping resulted. My purchases were mostly for my favorite parental units.

We stumbled upon a fascinating armory that had been turned into shops. I bought an awesome Swiss Army Knife for my dad. Its design included a sketch of Rothenburg drawn by the shopkeeper’s father-in-law. There are only 999 of these knives in the world! It’s a pretty cool story to tell and I was assured that I bought my dad something distinctly German.

We also had time to stop at a local bakery and try their AMAZING pastry balls. From what I understand, the balls made of strips of pastry that have been soaked in plum brandy and then coated with various sugars and icings. Mine was covered in lemon icing - FABULOUS! Definitely one of the highlights of the day.

By now it was ten o’clock and time to meet Philip for a tour of the local church. St. Jakob's,This magnificent Gothic place of worship is Rothenburg’s main church. Built in the 14th century as a Catholic church, it was once a stop on medieval pilgrimages. However, it became Lutheran in 1544.


In front is a beautiful altar with the 12 apostles. Behind it is a large painting of Rothenburg’s Market Square in the 15th century.

Stairs in the back of the church lead to an exquisite work of art - a wood carving, Altar of the Holy Blood. It was commissioned around 1500 to hold a relic - a capsule of rock crystal which supposedly held three drops of Christ’s blood. The scene is of the Last Supper as Jesus gives Judas a piece of bread which houses a famous altar piece, containing a relic of Christ’s blood. It was spectacular.


After exploring the rest of the church, we headed off to the Rothenburg Christmas store. The minute I stepped through the door I was thankful my mom decided not to go on the trip; she would have, in fact, bought the entire store. Needless to say I bought her gift there. Before we knew it our free time was over and it was time to head for Nuremburg.

Unfortunately the court house the trials were held was closed for tours, but we got to walk around and see some cool churches. After a quick stop at the Nuremburg fortress, we made time to for some ice cream. Remember that Saturday Night Skit we were talking about a while back in Salzburg? Well, sure enough the whole topic came up again as we explored the flavors of ice cream available in Germany. A poor villager, rattled by the conversation, obviously had no clue to what we were actually referring, but we learned to our surprise and my relief that there actually is an ice cream based on the amazing chocolates we had earlier - and it was a truly excellent flavor. Ice cream in hand, we headed off to the church where we would attend Mass before giving a concert.

Mass at St. Elisabeth Church was entirely in German and required serous concentration on the movement of the liturgy to get meaning from the experience. It was difficult not to let the amazing architectural detail of the church become a distraction.

Our concert, which followed, went very well. One woman in particular was effusive in her praise for our performance. I think she would have listened all night! On this high note, our day ended, with the group thankful for what we had seen and for the fun we had shared.