Snapshots in time: June 2007

We've been travelling here and there over the weekends but hadn't checked out our own little town, so yesterday we decided to take a stroll down to Ansbach and look around a little bit.

I had my flight physical done that afternoon for Flight Surgeon school, part of which is dilating my pupils. The bright light was killing me and I even had to wear sunglasses indoors for about 5 hours. Luckily, Malisa had her drivers test earlier in the day (she aced it) and so she was able to drive downtown.

There's an old section of Ansbach, with the Markgrafliche residence, and some old Cathedrals. Ansbach began its history in AD 748 with the foundation of a Benedictine Abbey by a man named Gumbert. The Markgrafliche residence has been remodeled several times and is now a Baroque neo-Classical structure. It now houses the museum of Faience and Porcelain. There's also a more modern part of Ansbach which basically encircles the old part of the city and the population is around 40,000.

Here's the mall, it's called the Brucker Center. There's a pedestrian bridge that leads across the main street through town and into the old section of Ansbach.

Collin suddenly wanted to ride on all these little kiddie rides. Here's a Bob the Builder one outside the mall.

We walked across the bridge and into the old part of town to look around and grab some dinner. Collin found a little door...

And he found a sculpture

We got to the Town Square and there was a huge cathedral, statues, fountains and cobblestone streets. There were cafe's on the streets, beer gardens and butcher shops, it was a nice surprise!

Collin had fun chasing the pigeons...he almost caught one.

Collin found another one of those little riding machines..and since it was a train, he had to ride on it.

More of Ansbach, this is next to the beer garden where we stopped to eat. (and drink). :) I had a Hefenwiezen, Collin had apfelsaft and Malisa had a Greek white wine that was really good.

Making cute faces in the Biergarden

Tough guys with dilated eyes. :)

Collin was telling us how much he liked the German food and showing us how full his belly is.

We stopped for ice cream and coffee afterwards and then headed back to the mall where we parked.

You can see part of the residence behind this statue.

There's a lot of stuff that we haven't seen locally, and there's a lot of fests that happen here in Ansbach that we need to check out. But...just thought I'd share our first impression of our new town.

This weekend we went to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany. Ob der Tauber means "above the river Tauber". It's the oldest walled city in Germany and it's in Bavaria, only about 30 miles from us. Bavaria is one of the regions in Germany...it's in the Southeast part of the country and it's also where Ansbach/Katterbach is located. It's such a great place to live, just picture New England with little German villages scattered across huge tracts of farmland with nothing between each village.

A brief history of Rothenburg ob der Tauber:
Rothenburg was established around 970 AD by the East Franconian Earl Reinger. In 1137, Konrad III became King of Germany and held court here. The first wall around the town was completed in 1204, but just as they were completed, the town became too big for them and a 2nd fortification was initiated. In 1356 an earthquake destroyed the entire fortifications apart from a few remains. 1945 - 40% of the city is destroyed by a bombing raid. The city escapes total destruction thanks to the energetic intervention of a US General. In the ensuing years, it was rebuilt in the old style.

We turned in our Ford Focus last week and rented a Cooper Mini instead...it was pretty fun to zoom around in and easily kept up on the autobahn.

The Galgentor gate, on the east side of Rothenburg, where we arrived.

Our first view of Rothenburg as we came in through the gate.

A little cafe on Galgengasse where we ate lunch. Collin had Sausage and Potato soup and he loved it! Malisa and I had our usual hefenweisens and bread/cheese and Hawaii toast.

After lunch we took a stroll toward the center of town, to the marktplatz.

Some sites we saw along the way, check out the weird little motorcycle with the wraparound windshield.

This is the Town Hall in the Marktplatz.

The impressive facades of the former meat and dance hall on the left, behind St. George's fountain and the Jagstheim house in the middle. Far right is the Town Hall again.

More views from the Marktplatz.

St. George's fountain. (The Dragonslayer).

There were a lot of horse-drawn carriages all around Rothenburg.

The old grammar school had sun dials on the staircase.

Flowers and flower boxes were omnipresent throughout Rothenburg.

Collin loved running along the cobblestone and old streets!

An old garden that we discovered by accident.

More homes decorated with roses.

Collin found some rocks decorated with ants. Luckily, he wasn't able to pull them off.

We stopped for ice cream and coffee after our walk. We initially had meant only to get ice cream for Collin and we tried to order in German; chocolate ice cream and applejuice for Collin and 2 Bailey's on ice and two coffees for us. We ended up getting 2 coffees and 2 large ice creams dishes that had Bailey's poured on them. It wasn't exactly what we had in mind, but it was really good!

After our break, we resumed our walk through town. Here's the liquor store. They sold Absinthe here (The Green Fairy!) which we fully intend to try sometime. Maybe when we have a babysitter.....they also have a lot of Franconian wine which comes in bottles unique to the region. They look like large flasks.