Spring 2019

Röttingen 12 May 2019

Visited the gardens at Weikersheim Palace, very pleasant. Tintin drove about 30 minutes to Röttingen and parked up alongside the river Tauber at a winery. Walk around the town and a ‘sundial’ trail.

12.05.19 - Very peaceful overnight, no other mohos, no street lighting and no cars driving past - and free!

Week 3, run 3 - done ✅. Did I enjoy it? - only for the different scenery! Apparently you get good and bad days, and today felt harder for me than a couple of days ago!

After breakfast and showers we walked through the park just behind the wall near us and into the gardens of the Weikersheim Palace. In 1586, Count Wolfgang of Hohenlohe took up residence in the former moated castle, and ordered construction of a new palace. It’s unusual because the floor plan was three sided. Count Carl Ludwig of Hohenlohe (1674-1756) who inhabited the palace for over fifty years gave the palace and garden the form they have today. The Hercules Fountain is right in the centre, quite a few big koi as well as goldfish in the water. There are 100 Baroque statues in the garden. They include the whimsical dwarfs - the Count had members of his court preserved for posterity. Good job they didn’t know! There is an orangery at the far end of the gardens (we were parked up just behind them).

We wandered through the exit to get to see the palace. We must have confused the lady there! The only way to look around was by guided tours in German, but they did have a leaflet in English if we wanted. On the leaflet it was €6.50 each for palace and garden, or €3.50 each for just the gardens! Oops! Looking back, there was a big van (possibly carrying pianos) coming out, so we just walked in and no one said anything. For once it wasn’t done on purpose - honest!

Afterwards we walked through the town, which we’d seen on our ‘run’ earlier in the day, and stopped off to buy some cakes for later.

After lunch - we’re still on the very dense seeded bread! - decided it needs Lidl potato salad to moisten it! - we packed up and left.

Tintin drove for about 30 minutes to Röttingen to another free place courtesy of Campercontact. No facilities, but right on the edge of the river Tauber. Some of the comments on the app mentioned that it’s the carpark for a winery. If we needed to buy some wine to stay here we would - but haven’t seen anyone - well a barking dog who broke free from the young lad who was supposed to be holding him!

Straight out for a walk. First thing we saw was a beautiful grey heron on the river. I’m glad Tintin’s camera has such a good zoom on it! There is another place to park with facilities nearby at €5 per night - it’s not as nice as our place, and there are about 8 German mohos there. We’ll go there tomorrow to pay for water only.

Being Sunday, most places are shut. The town house is very pretty. Went into the church, why do we do it? We’re not religious! What I do like is the total silence once inside - and you never know from the outside what it will be like inside! This one had a huge painting on the ceiling.

Walked up to the castle, but it was all closed. Get the impression it’s used more as a theatre. Anyway, way laid a woman with a tea trolley and asked about the sundial walk. She found a leaflet in German for us! It’s really strange, the 2km walk isn’t even mentioned on the Romantic Road website for Röttingen, had read about it elsewhere.

Anyway, eventually found the path - there are 25 different sundials to see - quite unusual - and surprised it’s not advertised more. In fairness, there weren’t many people about, well certainly not tourists!

It was nice to walk past lots of allotments/gardens. You get the idea that it’s keeping up with the Jones’s - there was only one unattended. They all each had their own water pump too! We saw on elderly gentleman having a look at his. I mentioned to Tintin that we haven’t actually seen that many elderly whilst here, whereas in Spain and Portugal we remember seeing congregations of men together sitting around for a good chat!

There are seven remaining fortification towers that protected the town walls. Here’s selection of them.

Back to Dave for more cake. One was rhubarb, and the other apple - had half of each - they were so much better than the ones we had out the other day!