I always wondered why there were so many towns in Germany with Bad in front of the town name. Petra finally cleared it up for me. She said that if the town has minerals rich waters and in the olden days nobility came to these towns for the healing property of the waters. The water has to be tested and found good enough before they get Bad in front of their town name.
This town is a walled city, a little like Rothenberg. They began construction on the walls in 1250, at least a 1000 years after the town was first documented, and completed 10 years after. During World War II, 126 houses were destroyed by the allied bombs.
I have never seen a yellow church before in Germany. I think it is cool and different!!!
Checking out the little stream in the town. There was a water wheel on the other side of the grate. It wasn't working while we were there.
The boys liked this water grass and there was a lot of it!!!
It is such a beautiful, peaceful, quaint town!!! I really enjoyed walking around and looking at the town!
Michael and AJ heading up to the walls of this town. Like I said it looks a lot like Rothenburg with the walls, but the town has a whole different feel to it. I like them both!
AJ checking out the wall. This shows you the height of the walls, I don't think that they were very tall when they built the walls around the city.
Looking out beyond the walls you can see a lot of vineyards!!! This town is located in the Ahr wine region. It is one of the smaller regions in Germany that primarily produces red wines, and red grape varieties account for 86% of the vineyard area, which is more than in any other German wine region. Due to the limited production, and the current high demand for domestic red wines in Germany, Ahr wines are almost never seen on the export market.
Isn't the town just so quaint and beautiful!!! I loved it!!!
After that we headed to a famous bridge from WWII, Bridge at Remagen. The bridge was built 1916-1918 and gained fame as the American troops were able to cross the last remaining bridge on the Rhine in 1945.
When an advance detachment of the US 9th Armored Division reached the Rhine at Remagen on March 7th, 1945 and found the Americans found the Bridge still intact. General Dwight D. Eisenhower is quoted as having said the Bridge was worth its weight in gold - Hitler, furious, suspected sabotage and had five of his officers sentenced to death by a kangaroo court. Ten days later, the bridge collapsed, heavily damaged as a result of numerous attempts to destroy it by artillery, bombs and rockets and killed more than 30 US servicemen.
AJ standing in front of the towers that were left.
Behind Michael is one side of the rivers towers - these towers host a museum about the bridge and POW camp nearby. We were a little short on time so we weren't able to go into the museum.
David up checking all the different plaques on the walls.
As you can see the 99th was the first to cross the the Rhine. The soldiers were glad to be able to cross it with dry boots!
The boys sure do LOVE messing with their dad!!!
I might have said something like AJ needs to go for a swim, that maybe helped instigate it, maybe not. LOL Michael was trying to help get his brother down.
But to no avail. Thankfully David changed his mind and AJ remained dry for another day. :-) After that Petra took us to an outlet store for Haribro and it was AWESOME!!!! There was so much candy that I think I had a sugar rush just from smelling all the candy. We did walk out with a lot more candy than I had planned, but it has all been pretty yummy!!!!
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