Tuesday 19th July - Bayreuth to Bad Mergentheim
We didn’t quite achieve our intended destination on the romantic road today as the scenic drive to Wurzburg took us through too many lovely towns with Tors (gated entrances) to the old town centres. Although just about every small town in this area of Germany has one, the most memorable for us was Rothenburg od der Tauber which has many Tors; a walled old town that you can still walk around the top of the wall and the towers, and various little cobbled streets lined with tourist shops and Bavarian buildings. The main Tor and an old crooked Bavarian house and water pump are featured in Ravensburg Jigsaws and Facebook games. Bavarian style buildings and old stone barns also lined the country roads, which are in perfect condition compared to those we have travelled down in Poland.
Although it was not the roads that slowed us down today nor totally the fault of the scenic towns, it was the heat. Again the temperatures climbed to the mid 30s meaning we had to stop and eat ice cream, drink fluids and for some unknown reason climb a hill to do a geocache at a castle in Abenberg.
We could have stopped in Nuremberg to see more museums and exhibits on the Nazi Party and WWII, however I am kind of over Hitler especially in this heat. We sidled around Ansbach after I read that they practiced Euthanasia and other killing methods on mentally handicapped children here in the 1940s and ran the Jews out of town. Most places were affected somehow by Hitler’s rule; if they weren’t, their history books say they were not affected by the bombings in either World War, like it was the English or American’s who brought all this destruction on Germany.
Today’s camp is a parking lot (with power) by the swimming pool in Bad Mergentheim; there were hundreds of swimmers but the pool closed at 7.30pm when the temperature was just getting down to 30 degrees and now the football nuts have moved in to the next door playing fields.
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