Last night we had a little adventure. As we were preparing for bed, I tried to turn off one of the power switches and apparently flipped a breaker. Instead of just the one main light going out, all power went out including the plugs running the TV, everything (at the time, Scott also thought power was cut out to every room on the floor). It was around 11:15 or 11:20 p.m., and of course, the hotel and restaurant staff leave at 11. After trying to switch the light a few times, Scott went downstairs to see if he could find anyone still around, but they were gone. We tried to dial the emergency contact number for the hotel. When someone answered, Scott started telling her how our power was out only to discover that we had apparently dialed someone’s home phone number. Needless to say, the confused lady was unable to help resolve our dilemma. Eventually, after a bit of looking, Scott found the breaker box outside in the hallway. All was well, but it was an eventful 30 minutes.

Heidelberg Castle in the background.
Our hotel is the yellow building, second from the right.

Today was a relatively mundane day – a nice way to wind down before our return to the U.S. We started with breakfast at our hotel, something light for a change: no eggs or sausage. (I’m so over sausage.) We did have a Berliner (a ball-shaped doughnut – think: an extra-large Munchkin from Dunkin Donuts – with sugar coating and raspberry filling) along with our fruit and cheese…and Scott’s daily yogurt, of course.

After checking out of the hotel and putting our bags in the car, we spent the morning walking Heidelberg again. We bought a couple of trinkets, pretzels and gelato, of course. We probably walked for 2 hours before deciding to leave for Frankfurt. As we were leaving the market square, we saw a couple that had just married and were about to head off in their decorated convertible. A wedding on a Tuesday afternoon seems a bit unusual to me, but we’ve seen brides and grooms several times during the week while we’ve been here.

Side note: We looked into some potentially short sidetrips to fill more of a day, but ultimately decided that we’d just go on to our hotel and prepare for our return flight – mainly repacking our bags in a better manner. It will be interesting to see how much weight the bags have gained during our trip. So far, Scott and I seem to have maintained our weight on the trip, balancing out all the rich food and excessive amounts of German sausage with plenty of walking. I probably shouldn’t get my cholesterol checked any time soon though.

So, off we went to Frankfurt after a little misdirection. I apparently selected the wrong airport in the GPS, but fortunately, it wasn’t far off base. All in all, we tallied more than 1,200 miles by car and approximately 125,000 steps on foot while in Germany. Returning the rental car was pretty easy as was our walk through the airport to the hotel. We opted to return the car tonight so we didn’t have to deal with that in the morning before our flight. We had to return our car to Terminal 2, then took the Skyline train from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 and walked past the long-distance train station to the Hilton we’re staying at. It’s very conveniently located for airport travel, along with a newly opened Hilton Garden and an older Sheraton. The building is called The Squaire, and there are a number of restaurants, shops and at list one business (KPMG) here. The Squaire building looks like a glass boat / space ship. It’s neat to think that if you work at KPMG, you can hop downstairs to take a regional or long-distance train or flight so easily.

Well, that’s enough of my ramblings. We’re off to bed and should land in Atlanta by 3 p.m. Eastern U.S. time on Wednesday. A couple of days of rest, then off to Auburn for the Auburn – Arkansas football game.

Auf wiedersehen!

Rothenburg ob der Tauber & Heidelberg

It's been a great vacation. Since we last wrote, we've visited two more cities -- Rothenburg ob der Tauber (not to be confused with Rothenberg) and Heidelberg.

A walk around the wall

First, we backtracked to Rothenburg ob der Tauber -- known as the best preserved Medieval town in Germany. You can walk around the city wall -- it's sort of an elevated covered sidewalk; the whole loop takes about an hour and a half, but there are a number of places where you can climb up and down, allowing you to walk only small sections if you want.

Our hotel room

Our hotel (herrnschlösschen) here was probably one of the best of our visit. Each place we've stayed has had some superlative about it (from our perspective anyway) -- best location, best breakfast, etc. Our hotel in Rothenburg definitely wins the prize for best service. Beyond service, the room was very spacious and pretty.

One of the many pretty windows
around town

Rothenburg o. d. Tauber almost verges on Disney-like within its walls; it's so surreal, yet charming. It's definitely worth a visit and we heard good things about the Nightwatchman tour, but we were too tired to participate in that one. In fact, we're quickly fading -- a good sign that it's about time to come home.



The town square
and some "typical" German buildings



The view from our room in Heidelberg
Over Marketplatz

This morning, we drove to Heidelberg. It's less than a two-hour drive from Rothenburg. This hotel (Goldener Falke) wins the prize for best location--although it has some tough competition with our hotel in Boppard and Prague. It's located right on the Marketplatz (the old town square). A public parking garage is close by, and it's practically at the foothill of Heidelberg Castle.

Tomorrow, we'll hang out here until afternoon, then head to Frankfurt. We may find a small town to stop in between; we'll see. We leave Germany Wednesday morning (local time), so we're staying at an airport very close to the hotel.