Golden Halls and Ivy Walls

Last weekend (May 10-11) we traveled down to Augsburg Germany, which is the 3rd largest city in Bavaria. We checked into our hotel and ventured out to meet up with friends at the Volksfest. We discovered that Augsburg is a much more modern city than most of the other ones we've visited so far. The weather was a little dreary to be at a festival, but we made the most of it by drinking on the carousel bar and riding the rides.

One of the entrances to the Volksfest

Sunday morning we woke up and walked around the city. We took a tour of City Hall and the restored Golden Hall. The town hall was built between 1615 and 1620 and is the landmark of the city.

We then walked to The Fuggerei, which is the oldest social settlement in the world. Jakob Fugger founded the Fuggerei in 1521 as a social settlement for needy Catholic citizens of Augsburg. The Fuggerei is a city within a city, having its own church, city walls and city gates.The most prominent resident was the master builder Franz Mozart, the great-grandfather of the composer Wolfgang Mozart.

Residents still live in the Fuggerei; a committee decides what new residents to admit. Residents still pay the nominal annual rent of one Rhine guilder (currently 0.88 euros) plus their utilities. Talk about rent control!

Shortly after World War II began, an air-raid shelter was built in the Fuggerei. We were able to tour the bunker and view pictures and artifacts from the war.

Entrance to the air-raid bunker

Fun fact about the Fuggerei: Each apartment has its own unique doorbell shape because before the installation of streetlights, it allowed the residents to "feel" their way home.

Our GPS took us home on the Romantic Road, so as we drove along the winding roads, we had gorgeous views of picturesque German towns and farmland.

Our Adventure in Rothenburg

This past weekend we traveled 2 hours down the Autobahn to the medieval town of Rothenburg. Rothenburg was mostly unharmed during WWII, and because of the Black Death and poverty, the city never modernized and thus is still a "medieval" city.

Once we arrived, we checked into our cozy hotel.....what a view we had!

Because of the Easter season, the town was still decorated beautifully!

We took a tour of the German Christmas Museum. We learned a lot about the history of Christmas. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any pictures, but we saw a lot of Christmas artifacts! Here are a few of the interesting facts we learned:

• Christmas trees had gold apples as decorations to symbolize the tree of life with Adam and Eve. They later were reduced to the simple form of a ball (ornament). 
• Mini trees made of wire with green paper or feathers dyed green were sent to German soldiers on the front line of the First World War.
• The appearance of Father Christmas was decisively influenced by Moritz von Schwind's drawing of "Mr. Winter" from the "Marriage of Figaro" cycle in 1825.

At dusk, we took the Night Watchman Tour. A costumed man shared the history of Rothenburg with us while walking us around the city. We learned that some of the descendants of people who lived in the city several hundred years ago still live in the same houses they lived in!

The next day we went to the Crime Museum. We learned all about life in medieval times, including crimes and punishment. People were punished for all types of crime: theft, adultery, witchcraft.....even baking bad bread. That's right, because bread was such an important food back then, the baker would be tortured for making the bread too small by being repeatedly dunked in the river!

Shame Flute: Worn around the neck by musicians who played bad music

Shame Mask: Worn by gossipers who had big ears and big mouths

Medieval Drunk Tank: Worn by the local drunks after a night of partying

Before we left, we made sure we tried some Schneeball (snowball), which is a popular Rothenburg pastry that comes in a variety of flavors.