Monday 9th - Kitzingen - Rothernburg - Kitzingen!

Well we’ve woken to find ourselves in another gorgeous town – this time we’re in Kitzingen on the Mein River.  

Jumping for joy in Kitzingen

We toured the town checking out the shopping – lots of passengers were fighting to see who would end up with the most ‘show bags’ at the end of the morning ... we certainly weren’t in the hunt, neither of us bought anything other than a hot chocolate!

Back on the ship for a light lunch before being bussed to Rothenburg.  But firstly a little about Kitzingen.  It’s one of the oldest cities in Lower Franconia and began with the establishment of a convent and the nuns established a wine cellar – good Catholics – and wine bestowed prosperity and power on Kitzingen, being the town’s main source of income.

There are several main attractions:  The Falterturm – known as the Falter Tower was once a watch-tower in the outer city wall which was built in the second half of the 15 Century.  It’s roof is lopsided and it’s the city’s #1 landmark.  One of the legends about the “crooked top” claims that due to a water shortage during the construction of the tower, the grout was tempered with wine.  John reckons that that legend is flawed.  He reckons that it wasn’t the wine in the grout that was the problem, but the wine in the builders who built the tower!

 

The Falter Tower - with the lean!

We crossed the road beyond the Falter Tower and walked through a huge archway to check out the beautiful gardens there.  It turns out it is the local cemetery.  We were both fascinated with the graves, so unlike ours in Australia that are grassed with flower vases at the headstone.  The Kitzingen graves are family plots, and they are (mainly) adorned with the most magnificent gardens and designs including granite slabs, rocks and trees.  Amongst these wonderful sites was one indicating the wife had died in 2006 and the husband in 2009.  Clearly nobody had tended the grave since then; it was overgrown with weeds as tall as three feet.  So I did some weeding.  It seemed very sad to me that nobody cared - not even the gardeners - I guess that's not what they're employed for.  Anyway, that was my good deed for the day.

So ... back on board for a quick light lunch then off to see the sights of Rothenburg.  It’s another magnificent, gorgeous, amazingly beautiful town.  On the way, we were astounded by the number of solar farms and solar panels installed on factories - even farmers have installed them on their farm buildings.  They have snow here and lots of it and lots of winter!  Wind farms are also very prevalent here - apparently since the tsunami in Japan and the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, the Germans have decided alternative forms of power need to be sourced. 

 

Solar panels on farm building roofs

Our first sight of Rothenburg was the massive stone town walls studded with towers; half-timbered houses with red tiled roofs; cobblestone streets and flower-filled window boxes.  The people obviously have such pride in their homes and the city.  Geraniums billowed from the flower boxes, as well as petunias and something that looked like potato weed or jasmine. 



Rothenburg wall

We spent most of our time in the Christmas shop but amazingly we weren’t tempted!  The Christmas museum was fantastic – we learnt much about some of the very old German Christmas ornaments we have at home.

We met Anneliese Friese, and at age 84 (I think that’s what she told me), she is truly remarkable.  Google her for more information.  Her husband was one of the initial workers to head to Australia to work on the Snowy Mountains Scheme.  She shuts her shop every year for three months to travel back to Australia.  She could remember everywhere she went in Australia – in order of her trips – and regaled us with endless stories for over half an hour.  I missed the rest of the tour with the tour guide but it was well worthwhile.

 

Check out this car - steering is done using two sticks - truly amazing!  I have no information unfortunately about the year, make, model etc.

 

Back on board the bus, I realised partway through our journey – supposedly to Wertheim - that that wasn’t where we were heading, according to the road signs, we were heading back to Kitzingen.  Our ship was meant to have made its way from Kitzingen to Wertheim while we were on our tour of Rothenburg!

Yes, the worst news – the lock masters have decided to strike and we’re stuck.  Other ships that were behind us had already left Kitzingen.  Container ships had passed us by, but we were still here.  The captain had decided it was better for us to be in a safe dock – and at least docked – rather than trying to take the chance of sailing on and getting stuck without the option of being able to dock.  At least being docked here, we are able to get off the ship.  We did notice this evening that several trucks were bringing more supplies for the ship so we should be right with food and drink.  We don’t know how this will affect the rest of our cruise – but there are certainly worse places to be stuck!