Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Columbus Day we took a short road trip to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, an old walled city. Last time we had been there was back in 1999. Notice the rain jackets and drab weather. Winter is coming, you can just feel it in your bones. What you don't see in these pictures is the wind howling down the side streets. We definitley weren't dressed warm enough for the day!

Brad thought it would be a highlight if we went to the famous Kathe Wohlfahrt Christmas store. This bus parked outside was about as interesting as it got. We like to kid him anyway that we drove 2 hours for this!

A view from another entrance into the city.

Jack has added this car to his 16th birthday wish-list! I'm sure we'd get really good insurance rates on this one! Not sure about the gas efficiency though!

Either this was a very short door, or the kids have really been growing!

Another side street view.

I think they could use some Round-Up to help with this ivy problem.

Any guesses how old this barn is? Scary thing, the sign is advertising parking inside and rooms available! Maybe it's the cheepest place in town?

The first thing we saw coming into town was the local bakery! This should be on no surprise to anyone! The locals favorite is the Schneeballen. We decided we would wait until the last stop of the day to buy some - then we'd have a nice snack on the way home.

Look at how yummy they look! Well, we were highly disappointed. They were nothing more than a deep fried, elephant ear-type concoction, covered with powdered sugar, cinnanon/sugar, chocolate or maple. So just enjoy how good they look, and save the calories!

We took the back roads on the way home and came to this bridge that supports the autobahn above. Pretty impressive! I was able to capture this photo while sticking the camera outside the window!

The Kochertalbrücke (Kocher Viaduct) near Schwaebisch Hall, Germany, the Autobahn 6 crosses the Kocher valley between Heilbronn and Nuremberg. With its maximum height of 185m above the valley bottom, it is the highest viaduct in Germany, and was also the bridge with the tallest pillars in the world before the Millau Viaduct in France was completed in 2004.

The nine spans of this prestressed concrete girder bridge cover a length of 1128m, the individual span lengths being 81m for the outer two and 138m for the remaining seven. Pillar height varies from 40m to 178m. The bridge table is 31m wide. Construction was from 1976 to 1979.

Okay, these photos below, I was able to find online.