Donauworth

Tuesday 31st August
Continuing to be a bit chilly, but fine and a fair amount of sunshine. Set off again on the Romantische Strasse - first stop Creglingen. Quite a small village, but just outside is Herrgottskirche. The Church is on the tourist trail because it has a magnificent carved wooden altar screen, crafted by Tilman Riemenschneider (is our friend Tilman named after him??) in 1510 - it depicts scenes of Mary and in the one of 12-yr old Jesus in the temple, he has included his own likeness among the scribes. Opposite the church is the Fingerhut - Thimble Museum. We went and had a look at this huge collection in a small room, from bronze age to present day, from all over the world (but mainly Germany!). In the words of the leaflet "....inventions to beware women's hands from pinpricks ...."



On to Rothenburg ob der Tauber - a large town surrounded by an ancient wall in near-perfect condition. So many beautiful buildings and towers to photograph, plus we needed to sample the local speciality - a Schneeballen. We watched them being made - roll out a piece of sweet pastry, then cut the centre in strips with a special cutter, pick it up so all the strips get mixed up, place in a ball-shaped thingy with a handle and popped into a deep-fat fryer. It comes out like a ball of wool, then coated in all kinds of goodies - we bought the simple sugared variety, no doubt the chocolate one is even better!



Fast-tracked a few miles from there by hopping on the autostrasse, to Dinkelsbuhl, where we have found a restplatz next to a campsite, with all the facilities we need at half the price.



Wednesday 1st September

Walked into Dinkelsbuhl - probably best not to mention the failed geocache hunt involving counting struts and rivets on various bridges, doing a sum and not coming up with a sensible answer! Lovely stroll through the streets of yet another picture-postcard town and enjoying the sunshine at a pavement cafe in the market square. One of the ancient buildings has been turned into a 4-storey "3D Museum" - all sorts of holograms, 3D images (red/green specs provided), optical illusions and lots of those pictures covered in small shapes that you have to stare at till a 3D image appears.



Picked up the van from the restplatz and drove to Aldi for supplies (don't seem to find a normal supermarket around these parts) before moving on further south. Drove underneath the huge Harburg Castle through a 300m tunnel(!) and on to Donauworth. Tomorrow we will see where the Rivers Wornitz and Danube join. The campsite has wifi, but only near the bar, so off we go to post this blog.