THE ROMANTIC ROAD

Friday, March 22, 1996 Dinkelsbuhl and Auzsburg

Everyone slept a little bit better, especially considering we’ve been doing a new bed each night. Drove around the town some more. Purchased gifts , crystals, postcards & prints; and a leather lion for Connor. Waited till 11 AM to get inside the church. Then off to the Romantic Road on the way to Dinkelsbuhl, another walled city but soooooo small we decided that’s where they got the word “dinky”. It is known for its very pitched roof on tall buildings all seemly very uniform in size and shape.

We shopped, Barbara bought 2 clown dolls. Took forever to find a toilette or WC as they’re known. Then we went to Nordlingen. Parked the car in a parking garage and found out how to pay for the parking. The lady at the WC made us pay to use the toilettes. Another walled city with an island. We walked through the town, bought the links for the crystals at a jewelry store. The church was great, had been firebombed in 1945 and then restored. Only part of the stained glass windows were preserved. Back to the car just as it started to rain.

On the road to Augsburg. There we found a quaint hotel in town known as “Hotel Am Rathaus”. We found it by Barbara and Jim getting out and walking around the town and talking to local people. Later we found it listed in our book. We had an underground garage on this one. After we had checked into the hotel, we went walking through town. The square was beautiful and there were at least three magnificent churches within blocks of each other. All closed but we walked around them. Ended up eating at McDonald’s since we couldn’t agree to any menus that we read from the street.

After dinner we walked the other direction and found many different gasthofs, any one of which would have been great. After we got back to the hotel room we made coffee and ate Barb’s cinnamon bagel chips from home for dessert. I called the office to check on business. Our broken bed routine started about two hours later. About 11 PM Barbara came knocking on our door…we’d just turned out the lights and I was reading by flashlight.

Barbara found out that she had a broken bed. She had called the desk with no answer. We also tried to call the desk, no luck. I went back to Barbara's room with her and we read and talked until after midnight. Then Barbara went back down the hall and slept in my bed. We had twin beds which were pushed together but had separate bedding. Barbara was very quiet as Jim had been asleep for hours by now but her wandering left foot still managed to find him during the night...which woke him up of course. He was not happy about finding his sister in my bed! I managed to sleep in the broken bed by curling up at the end of the bed. But we did survive the night!