We spent our last touring day visiting the Former Abbey Church in Amorbach.  The towers date from 1100.  The Baroque church was built in 1742-47.  The wrought iron work is one of the most beautiful treasures.  The Baroque organ has 5,000 pipes and is one of the biggest and important organs in Southern Germany.  Next we drove to Miltenberg which has picturesque half-timbered houses.  We had lunch and then drove back to Wurzburg in the rain.

Tonight I am Wurzburg, Germany watching the Women’s World Cup Soccer with the United States playing Chile in Paris, France.  It is a small world.

This will be my last post for this trip.  Tomorrow we go to Frankfurt and then we fly home.  I hope you have enjoyed our travels.

Wurzburg has 64 churches and 400 wine taverns and I won’t be able to see them all but today we saw a few.  We walked to the Wurzburg Residence and Court Garden.  The Residence took 60 years to complete from 1720-1780.  This is the former residence of Wurzburg Prince – Bishops.  We were not allowed to take pictures inside.  The interior had rooms that were so opulent a picture could hardly do it justice.  In the Court Garden we went into a chapel and I got a few pictures.  Then we rode a bus up the mountain to the Marienberg Fortress.  I got a few great pictures of the city.  Then we came home and rested before thinking about dinner.

Yesterday we finished walking the wall around Rothenburg ob der Tauber.  We found a quilt store and I bought some German fabric.  After lunch we took a walking tour of the village and learned a lot of history.  We visited the history museum.  Tomorrow we head for Nurnberg.

We are now in Nurnberg and the first thing we did was ride a little train around old town.  There is a lot to see.  Frauekirhe was our first church to visit.  Then a light rain forced us back to our hotel as our umbrellas were in the car which was parked two or three blocks away.  Parking is very difficult and expensive.  We got our umbrellas and walked around visiting several more churches.  The history and the beauty just amaze me.  One church we visited St. Lorenz-Kirche was begun in 1270.  Another we visited St. Sebaldus-Kirche was consecrated in 1273.

We arrived here during a four day festival called Whitsun Festival.  Men, women and children are dressed in medieval costumes.  The men march around town playing marching music, singing and displaying weapons.  We were having lunch in a restaurant named Baumeisterhaus (built in 1596) when a group walked in marching and singing.  Then they sat down for lunch.  We also walked most of the morning walking the wall.  Susan went to the very top and took a picture.  I waited as I knew the stairs were to much for my knees.  When she came back she was exhausted but she got a great picture.  We went to a store called Kathe Wohlfahrt’s which is a year round Christmas village.  It was phenomenal.  I read about a quilt store I want to go to but it is closed on Monday.  We will go tomorrow.

We spent last night in Lorrach, Germany because we saw a castle and Susan had been driving all day.  Today we drove to Rothenburg ob der Tauber.  The entire drive was gorgeous with beautiful green forest and hills, farmland and cows everywhere and lots of vineyards.  Rothenburg  ob der Tauber is a medieval city with massive stone walls studded with 42 towers.  It has cobblestone streets and red-tiled roofs.  Enjoy the pictures.

Today we drive to a little village that our friend Joe B.’s family immigrated to America from.  This village is in the mountains and was a beautiful drive with waterfalls.  We started noticing a lot of pink bicycles hanging from trees, houses, fences, bridges, etc.  There were also pink bows tied on to anything they could be tied to.  We finally figured that there had been a big bicycle race up the winding road.  We found our friend’s village charming and pretty.  We had a great lunch in Locana.  We asked the waiter if he spoke English and he said no he spoke French, Italian and Spanish so Susan ordered our lunch in Spanish.  Our lunch was wonderful.  After lunch we drove to Stresa on Lake Maggiore, Italy.  Our room looks out on the lake and villages around the lake.

We are now in Turin, Italy and today Susan and I were good tourist.  We had breakfast at our hotel and then walked to catch the Hop On Hop Off bus to tour this busy and crowded city.  We got off the bus and walked to the Turin Cathedral which was built during 1491-1498.  In this cathedral is one of the most famous Christian relics in the world, the Shroud of Turin.  As you probably know the relic is said to bear the imprint of Christ’s face.  All the chapels in this church were incredible beautiful works of art.   I hope you enjoy the pictures.

I tried to take pictures from the bus which is hard to do and I can’t identify most of the pictures.

We spent two nights in Oberstdorf and Susan was very disappointed as it has grown so much and had so many people there that it had lost its small village charm.  Our last night there we were at dinner and all at once there was a tremendous thunderstorm with a downpour of rain and hail.  It lasted quite a while and of course our umbrellas were in the car.  We chatted with the Germans sitting at our table then we had dinner and during a lull we rushed back to our hotel.  We missed seeing the cows coming home from the pastures.  The good news:  we asked the man at the hotel where a laundry mat was and he said they could wash our clothes.  We gave him our dirty clothes and went to bed.  In the morning we asked for our laundry and the lady working breakfast didn’t know what we were talking about.  Susan went with her to the laundry room and got our clothes.  The lady didn’t know what to charge us so it was free.  We left and started our drive to Italy and the Garmin directed us to a road which was closed.  Susan decided to go to France instead and after 6 hours of driving we are at a Best Western in Chambery, France.  The pictures posted show a WWI and WWII memorial for the men from Oberstdorf who died in the wars.  I only took a picture of one panel of names as there were several panels.  Then on our walk back to the hotel we posed with the Wilde-Mannle of Oberstdorf.