Team Bald Travels: Day 33: Around Bad Rodach

Today we biked down to the town (village) and spent some time looking around. This is the city hall.

But first, as always, the lovely included hotel breakfast. It's not first in the blog today because the first photo is the one that shows when it's shared so this is an effort to have a photo other than breakfast show. Heh.

The handsome husband has breakfast. Exciting, eh?

So, we biked down to the town and stopped again to look at the giant birds atop the... whatever it is... that we saw on Friday. We now think they are storks, based on just about nothing except we've seen the word Stork used in a local business. We do not know birds...

Like last time, there are at least three of them moving around up there in the giant nest. This... pedestal thing is just in a car park beside the road.

We noticed some signs advertising summer fun. Apparently starting Thursday there's a big bird shoot coming up? The second banner is advertising the summer rate for a day pass to the Thermalbad. The third one is a concert or play, perhaps?

Our first destination was the train station to see if we can sort some train tickets for the weekend. Alas, the answer was no. This train station has no humans working and is all boarded up with a sign reminding folks to call the 800 number or buy tickets online. There is a ticket dispensing machine but we aren't ready to try that yet. And, we aren't desperate for train tickets yet. They are easier to figure out online, but then how do we print the ticket? Hmm... Notice that the tracks end here. This is the end of the line and it seems the train coming to here from Coburg is generally only two cars (both engines with passenger space?).

So, then we biked over to the tourist information center to see if Frau Shiela (not how to spell her name, no doubt, but we know it isn't Schiller...) is working today. The Tourist Info center is the bottom floor front section on the right.

This is the hunting palace that belonged to a long line of Herzogin royalty. The last owner was the brother of the husband (Prince Albert?) of Queen Victoria (of Great Britain). The family would come here to hunt and relax, apparently. However, in the 1880s, they insisted that the town sell them the forest and the town said, no because the forest was needed for survival and the economy. So, the family sold the palace to the town instead. The town used it as a school for about a century, and since then it has been used as the tourist info center, an exhibition space, and some other things we don't quite understand. It has some interesting historical information inside but no original furniture or furnishings. A hundred years as a school sort of makes that impossible, no doubt.

The fountain in front is a naked female archer. It is not a rounded building but the pano feature of the phone camera makes it look that way. It's the only way to get the whole thing in one photo from the front because its little square is surrounded by buildings.

Here's a side view without the distortion. You can see what a beautiful day it is!

We wandered around the square (which isn't square but that's the best word we have) and found a monument to a former school superintendent, Christian Hohnbaum.

Then we walked through the city walls to the outside (on the north) and found they were beautiful decorated with roses and other plants.

Apparently, this is a memorial to the German poet Friedrick Rückert who came here as a guest of the beloved school superintendent, Christian Hohnbaum.

The city walls on the north are well preserved and dotted with a variety of towers.

A number of plaques on the wall apparently exhibit snippets of Rückert's poetry.

I will translate these later.

More poetry!

Most of the towers have the typical keyhole shaped openings, presumably for archers.

More wall and more archer slots.

We walked around the walls to get a glimpse again of the church and the path.

This tower is short and squatty!

And, in front of it, is a modern playground.

Here's the handsome grandson of a former inhabitant of Bad Rodach.

More wall and tower shots!

More flowers planted around the wall and paths.

After this we went back to the tourist info center for a restroom break. While waiting for me, Andy met a nice young lady named Frau Doktor Anya Augustin, who is the local medieval expert. She conducts historical tours and invited us to the Tuesday night tour, which we will surely do. She also had opinions about how Andy can find more info about his grandfather, the local ghosts, places to bike, local bike shop/repair guy, and restaurants. She is a gold mine of information.

We biked off to find some lunch, first trying the local Italian restaurants but both are closed on Mondays. So, we went to the Stadt Cafe (city cafe) and had some lovely food, including onion soup, ham noodles, and so forth.

This place has fantastic desserts and Andy went for the peach torte!

After this, we wandered to the local store of all things (postcards, stationary, office supplies, books, toys, you name it, and also the tiny post office (inside this tiny store) to buy postcards and stamps.

Then, off to the shoe store to look at sandals. Amelia likes Birkenstocks and all hers are worn out so some shoe shopping was in order, especially as they cost half here of what they cost in the USA.

We bought two pairs of sandals and had a long chat with the store owner. This sort of thing inevitably happens because we are always asked, how long are you here and why. Apparently, Bad Rodach does not get a teaming crowd of foreign tourists.

The lady who owns the shoe store is the third generation here, her grandfather started the store. He was born in 1900, three years before Andy's grandfather. She is pretty sure they must have known each other, since Andy's grandfather was a leather worker. She is going to ask around to see if she can find some info on Richard Baldes (grandpa) or his family.

Then, at the shoe store owner's suggestion, we went off to find the church office, which is not located at the church, so we could see what the hours are in order to come back on another day to talk to the priest. She pointed across the street to an alley and said something like "Go down this street to the church, then go around the church, and over the bridge and across, then look for the house with three chickens in the yard." Seriously? We never did find three chickens but we did find the church office and a notice about hours.

We also found another poem on the side of a tiny old building by the path.

Then, we decided to bike west to find the location of the bike shop. We knew it would be closed but we decided to find it so we'd know for later. It also took us past this tower that we'd seen before.

This is a typical style of tower in many German towns.

Then we biked back to the town square (market place) which is not a square at all, but a triangle with two long sides and one short side. The short side has the city hall and some other buildings. In this photo that's behind the photographer The fountain is in the middle and here we are looking down the long sides to the point. The fountain is topped by a rearing lion.

A nicer view.

Looking north from the fountain, the city hall (Rathaus) can be seen (beige and brown on the right).

Here's a pano view of the north short side of the market triangle.

And a pano view in the opposite direction. Cars coming from the south go to the east of the fountain (which is behind the photography) and cars going south go to the west of the fountain.