This post is long overdue but we’ve been super busy enjoying our first visitors from the USA!
Our dear friends Megan and Pat made the long trip to see us. We picked them up from the airport Saturday morning and gave them a few minutes to drop their things at our house before dragging them off to their first castle.
Liechtenstein castle is about one hour south of our house. When we got there, we found a Glühwein stand right at the parking lot and decided to stop for a pick-me-up while the kids played on the playground.
Afterwards, we made our way up to the castle and took a tour. It was really funny that the only way to go into the castle was to take a tour which was given completely in German. They did give us a brochure and the tour guide translated to English at the end of each part. However, we quickly noticed that the German part was much longer and had the whole crowd laughing, whereas the English part was just a couple of dry sentences. I guess the German humor doesn’t translate easily to English. The best part was the view of the castle from the cliffs edge a little ways away.
We let Megan and Pat get some sleep in the car and then headed out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants by the lake in Böblingen. At this point we were all exhausted but we made sure to stop in at the Christmas hut in Sindelfingen for one more Glühwein.
Sunday morning we got up bright and early to head to Rothenberg an der Tauber. Because of our early start, we had the whole town almost to ourselves during the morning and were able to get some great pictures. It was freezing though and there were even a few snowflakes.
Of course we had to have lunch in a kebab shop and then warmed up with some more Glühwein.
One of the highlights of Rothenberg is the Käthe Wolfhart store, which is a huge Christmas store and museum, year round. We did some shopping and took the tour. Unfortunately, they don’t allow pictures inside so I only have a few but it was definitely beautiful and somewhere we will return for future shopping!
The day would not have been complete without a trip to the Museum of Medieval Crime and Punishment. It was… Interesting. One of the funniest things is that there were many preserved animals that our dogs thought were real and had to bark at each one.
We let Megan and Pat get some more sleep in the car and headed back home. In the evening, we went out to dinner for a coworker’s birthday at a restaurant in Böblingen we had never been to, New Leon’s Food Club. The food was awesome and it also had a creative cocktail menu (cocktails are not a thing in Germany), so it was fun to try the different drinks.
Afterwards, we went home for a few more drinks and games. I’ll leave you with this parting shot of Pat wearing his new euro scarf.
Gilcrests Abroad 