A Blessed Visit

I can't believe that Leslie returned home this morning! It seemed like time just flew by at the end. We had the BEST day yesterday.

The Lord truly blessed us with awesome weather and an awesome last day for Leslie in Germany. We started the day by having breakfast on the base Zev works at, with other military spouses. We then hit the road for our final road trip together, up to historic and simply stunning Rothenberg ob der Tauber. If you EVER come to Germany, make sure you visit this gorgeous little town. It is incredible. Yesterday was my first visit to this village. I loved it and plan to take our next guests there.

Rothenberg is such a fairy-tale little village. Here are some interesting facts (thanks to wikipedia in part!):

The city is a walled city, meaning that there is a medieval wall surrounding the town. Leslie and I climed this wall and walked along the top of the wall from one end to the other! How fun!

The name of the city, "Rothenberg ob der Tauber" means "Red fortress above the Tauber". This is so because the town is located on a plateau overlooking the Tauber river. As to the name "Rothenburg", some say it comes from the German words Rot (Red) and Burg (burg, medieval fortified town), referring to the red colour of the roofs of the houses which overlook the river. The name may also refer to the process of retting ("rotten" in German) flax for linen production. Leslie and I stopped in the quaintest little linen and lavender store and picked up some lavender satchels for our linen drawers.

Rothenburg has appeared in several films, notably fantasies. It was the inspiration for the village in the 1940 Walt Disney movie Pinocchio. It was also the location for the Vulgarian village scenes in the 1968 family movie, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and is sometimes mistaken as the town at the end of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971); that town was Nördlingen.

Leslie and I tried some (more!) local German specialities including Pfefferlingesuppe (a wild mushroom soup; Chantelle mushrooms are currently in season :-), as well as Flammkuchen (a thin pizza like dish which had tomato, basil and mozzarella).

We also enjoyed some Schwarzwaldtorte (Black Forest Cake) and sampled the local Rothenberg speciality, "Schneeballen" (Snow Balls.) We sat in the town square in the cutest little coffee shop and listened to a group of young Americans and Germans play some traditional music (including the March of the Military!)

In addition to exploring Rothenberg, Zev took Leslie and I to Heidelberg this past weekend.

We did the castle tour and enjoyed a yummy lunch in the historic downtown.

We also met up with some local friends in downtown Stuttgart; visited our church; visited Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart; had lunch with Angela and Gena at the Ritter Sport Chocolate Factory; and had lunch in Strasbourg, France. Oh yeah, we also visited Salzburg and Munich last week! I'll have to post pictures of that trip in another blog entry!

We packed a lot into two weeks, and I miss Leslie already.

Thank you for such a wonderful visit, sweet friend! You inspire me with your Walk; with your confidence as a Christian woman and positive perspective! This was a blessed visit.