Germany 2013 - the Romantic Road

Thursday, May 30, 2013
  We left Munich this morning to travel the "Romantic Road". It is a route that takes you through many charming little towns.
  We stopped at Harburg and toured the castle there. Not a well-known castle but one that is still family-owned after several centuries. The tour was mainly in German but we were given written explanations and the guide was so nice, she gave her talk in German at each part of the castle, then took the time to give us a summary in English.  We were able to walk the castle walls and see inside the towers.  There were slots in the walls for shooting arrows which we've seen in many other castles, but Harburg also has special openings for use by musketeers.  A musketeer would fire his musket through a small opening in the castle wall but, the thing that makes this different from every other castle we've seen, is that they shot through a large wooden ball with a hole in the center.  The ball could rotate so that the opening could be rotated toward the wall in order to close the opening and prevent a bullet from coming through from the outside and wounding the musketeer as he reloaded his gun.
  We drive on to Nordlingen but nothing was open except a few cafe's as today was a holiday in this part of Germany.  We had some pizza for lunch, then climbed a church tower to work off the pizza. Next we drove to Dinkelsbuhl, which looked like a nice city to stroll around and maybe do some shopping, but everything was closed there too.
Next up: Rothenburg ob der Tauber.