Germany 1

Germany 1 - Tubingen, Wurzburg & Rothenburg

So, after the LONG flight from Cleveland to Frankfurt, we rented a itty-bitty car and Steve drove on the AUTOBAHN to Tubingen. It was quite the experience, since Steve hadn't slept ont the plane (he never does!) and then had to face the maniacal autobahn drivers! Given that speeding is in Steve's blood, it wasn't long before he got the feel for it, though he never drove at the speed of the fastest drivers! It took several hours to drive to Tubingen, and luckily Steve had brought his GPS that was outfitted with German maps. It helped a WHOLE lot, so consider it if you are ever driving in a foreign country!

The hermaphrodite meeting (really!) was supposed to be in Tubingen, but it turned out that the facility originally scheduled didn't have enough rooms for the group. Thus, we were instead housed in a small town outside Tubingen (with a not-so-direct connection to Tubingen, unfortunately!). Nonetheless, Claudia and the girls got into Tubingen several times while Steve was learning all there is to know about the evolution of breeding systems in hermaphrodites! You will note how picturesque Bavarian towns are!

Luckily for Claudia and the kids, there was a cool street fair in Tubingen during our visit. They had all kinds of booths with various food and artistic endeavors, which kept them interested for some time. This was our first encounter with the picturesque German housing, which is quite cool!

One of the last nights of the meeting, the "hermaphrodite" group went to Tubingen to the street fair. At night, there were MANY wine tents operating, so we had a few glasses of fine German white wine (which turned out to be quite good!). Again, note the lovely buildings surrounding the square.

After the meeting, we drove up to Wurzburg to begin our driving trip down the "Romantic Road." This was a driving trip suggested by Rick Steves guide book. It hits a number of smaller Bavarian towns that weren't completely hammered in WWII. It turned out to be a great choice! This was a hotel suggested by Rick Steves in Wurzburg. It was a quaint, 500 year old hotel that had this neat little dining area. Most hotels come with a free breakfast, and we quickly got used to the wonderful cheeses, breads, and meats served for breakfast. OK, so the girls weren't too excited about this, but they figured out that putting nutella on rolls and drinking hot chocolate was a good alternative to our breakfast cereal!

On the final night of the meeting, there was a big drinking fest in the on-site bar. Steve was happy to have finally met a British colleague, John Pannell (pictured above) that works on the same issues Steve does, and has produced a model that Steve is testing in his clam shrimp research.

As with Italy, some of the most beautiful architecture was found in the churches. This is a shot of one of the more majestic churches in Wurzburg, the Marienkapelle Church .

This is a shot down one of the main streets in Wurzburg. They had a streetcar system that was pretty modern and a mix of older and newer architecture, as you can see here. The large, twin spired building at the end of the street was the St. Kilian Dom church.

Just down the road from Wurzburg is Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This was probably one of our most favorite places on the whole trip. This is one the best preserved medieval towns because it was mostly spared from WWII. It is a walled town on a hill with all the buildings basically elbow-to-elbow. This is a typical street in Rothenburg. Our first evening, we took the "night watchman" tours (in English) which was really fun! We stayed in an old mill outside the town and down a steep hill. It was a great place to stay and we would definitely go back!

It turns out that right down the stream from where we were staying was one of the oldest towns in the area - Detwang, which was founded ~1000 AD. This is a shot of a small graveyard next to the oldest structure in the area - an ancient church thought to be built before the town (they had people living in this region as early as 500 BC!).