Friday, October 08

It was lovely to wake up in our enormous castle chamber, and hen have a nice breakfast in the dining room.
We asked at reception for a reservation in Bamberg, and she kindly made one for us, hopefully another castle.
Then we set Helen to take us to Rothenberg ob der Tauber, a town we've been told is a must-see.
The on-ramp to Helen's autobahn route, so we proceeded trying a U-turn to get on from the opposite direction - no luck, closed. So I had to go old-school, and try to figure out a route on the map to see if that would work. We succeeded but Helen kept yammering on about U-turns, etc, etc, trying for about the next 35 minutes to get us back to the blocked highway. {Larry: I know you can turn her off but we thought she would "get it" and reroute us]. Finally it occurred to us to instruct her to avoid motorways and she suddenly LOVED the route we were on. That is until we hit another road blocked as we approached Rothenberg. Once again, as we followed detour signs ( once we figured out how to recognize them in German) se kept wanting to go back. So finally, we turned her off.
Rothenberg was everything we'd heard it would be.
We parked well-outside the walls, and enjoyed strolling the ancient cobbled streets, sitting outside enjoying lunch and generally soaking up the atmosphere. It was a bright, warm sunny day, so even better to enjoy such a place.
By mid-afternoon it was time to head out to Bamberg. Once again we crossed our fingers and programmed Helen with the address of our hotel.
This time, she did an excellent job right to the last block. She even recovered well from a wrong turn.
The hotel is not a castle: sad!, but is in the Cloisters of a Carmelite convent. It has been renovated into ultra-modern, large suites. So again we're liking the space and luxury.
Arriving, though, it was hard to figure out: small entrance, locked with intercom. I buzzed, identified myself and was buzzed in - to a large, blank hallway. What now? There was an elevator, but it was closed and no buttons. Suddenly it opened. I got on. There was a button for reception. I rode up, got off into darkness! Groped my way along a long corridor towards a light and was rewarded with the reception desk, where I got a key to everything (front door, elevator, room and a tag to open the gate to the parking lot. [Larry: meanwhile through all this I am parked in front of the powered gate, hoping Jan would arrive with the "key" before the next resident with their car.] Some people who arrived later after dark without a reservation were unable to rouse reception. I hope they got a room.
Anyway we set out on foot to get a feel for the town and found a very popular restaurant where we had a good dinner.
Nice town and we plan to walk around a bit more in the morning.

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