Rothenburg- Day 2

Ah, Day 2 for beautiful Rothenburg. This is Steve and Irmgard.

First stop: The Criminal Museum. Basically all the torture stuff. Greg was really excited for this. I was not. But it was pretty fascinating. This shot just brought me to the movies. Hauling you away FOREVER!!!

The stalks.

If you were a baker and your bread wasn't the right weight, you got put in one of these cages and dunked into the river!!!! (One dunk for every half ounce that it was off!)

Ah, the chastity belt. Did anybody else know these things actually existed? Because I didn't.

Apparently, men would strap these on their wives before they left town. But look, they made sure we had a hole to poo and pee out of. Feelin' the love, guys, feeling the love. Ew, can you imagine? What a mess!!! What if they left town for months? Yeah, and were there chastity belts for men? I don't think so!!!

This is a mask that a gossip would have to wear while chained to the pillory. Making people stand at the pillory with different humiliating masks, etc. was a common form of Medieval punishment. The big ears represent hearing everything and the tongue saying everything. There were all kinds of crazy masks people had to wear! This one covers up the face, but most of them you could see who was wearing it.

You had to wear this if you were a bad musician. The loop at the top locks around your neck and your fingers are locked into the position where you would normally play the notes. C'mon people! That's just mean!

The executioner's swords. Off with their heads!!!!

This one's for my mother: The Fashion Police. If a seamstress sewed something "too fashionable" for someone of a given class, she would have to wear this (a big wooden collar that locks around the neck). Those caught wearing clothes that were too fashionable for their class could have the clothes stripped off!! In public! So... the Fashion Police DO really exist!!... or did at least.

This one's CRAZY!!! It's a witch catcher. Because you can't actually TOUCH a witch, or that would be bad right? So they made these to catch them around their necks! OUCH!!!! It is hard to tell in the picture, but the pole is like 6-8 ft long and the thing on the end is designed to push onto the "witch's" neck, but not come off.

You'd have to wear this in front of the church building while people went inside if you were caught sleeping during the service! Ha!!!

Delinquents were locked in here (hands above feet) and people would come and tickle you as added punishment. They would also salt your feet and bring goats to come lick you (real tickle torture!)! There is a box behind Greg you can sort of see. The top is really crazy looking. Well it has 14 different locking mechanisms to keep your gold safe. CRAZY!!!

This one's just hilarious. A couple,who is fighting, gets there heads and hands locked in here and isn't released until they solve their quarrel! This was for married couples or women (not ever for men!)

Isn't Rothenburg beautiful!!!

Ok this is hilarious. The night watchman told us that this door dates back to the 1300s and it's hinges are from the 1100s (I think), which means it's the new door. How hilarious is that? Also, we learned about the "man hole". Once the sun fell down everybody had to be in the city walls. If they just opened the gate, anybody could rush in and destroy the city. So they created a door, within the door- just big enough for a man.

We thought these stairs were neat.

You can barely see in the picture- but there would be these grand landscapes and if you look down in the valley there would be this small village of 10 houses together, all by themselves. So beautiful. Little spots like this popped up all over Germany.

Randy.

You'll notice for dinner there was a familiar theme . . .

Well, I guess, Randy strayed from it a little.

After having sausage every singe day, I decided to go with something different.

But then all the sausages ended up being amazing! So I nibbled off of everyone's plate, then ended up trading my pasta for Greg's sausage after all. Well, the parents were all tuckered out and ready to go but Greg, Chris and I still wanted to walk the wall. So we made a mad dash for it while everyone else waited in the car.

There were just these long corridors of wood and it would creak under your feet!

There'd be these openings along the wall and we'd get these great little views of the city.

Looking out the window . . .

I really liked this picture. Just a random part of the wall, but it looks all princess-y. I love it.

We walked and walked and everything just looked cool.

I liked this picture because you always take a picture and then it looks so small on film. But this shows how little the boys are compared to it.

As soon as there was a door- the boys just ran in. And what was inside was never lit up. The light you see is strictly from my camera. I'd always be afraid we wouldn't find a way out and would get lost inside, but eventually we'd see a light. This is where I started to get mad. Greg would just dash in and out- where if I can't see, I move my feet inch by inch until I eventually make it through and Greg would just leave me in total and utter darkness to fend for myself in some hundreds of years old rickety, unsure-footed building WITH STAIRS. Greg knows he's not supposed to do this, but he did it anyway. Though I WAS upset- I just kept thinking, "Wow, this really isn't like him (to leave me), he must really be excited."

This was outside the wall. I don't know why, I always thought being "outside" the wall was really cool. It would show you what you'd have to overcome during a war. Climbing up it, shooting arrows, etc.

This bridge just made me think of Robin Hood.

I loved this whole walk. The boys were literally RUNNING all around, because they were so excited. I had to keep telling them to slow down. It just felt like you were in another world. Nothing in your vision to kept you in reality.

Once we were finished, it was just another high. The parents really missed out. And to think we almost didn't make this last run. Greg said it was the best part of the whole experience of Rothenburg.