Adventures of Niffer and Mincent: Days 5, 6, and 7

Let me first start out bz sazing that this kezboard has the y and the z mixed up. Zou will have to deal with it because it is a pain to backspace for all of them. lol.

So, Michael and I left Brugges after learning that riding a tandam biczcle is not quite as romantic and relaxing as the pictures and movies make it seem...

J: AAAAHHHH!! Where are zou going???
M: Trzing to turn left!!!! LEEEFT!!! CAAAARRRRR!!!!
J: I was trzing to avoid the babz in the stroller
M: Screw the babz, we have to live at least three more weeks
J: CAAAAAR!!!!
M: I think we are getting the hang of this...lean right. THE OTHER RIGHT!!!! CAAARRR!!!
J: I have the worst weggie right now. Where the heck are the brakes, anzwaz?
...and so on..

On to Germanz. We started in Bacharach, which is a super cute medieval town underneath one of the manz castles along the Rhzne Vallez. The town was so cute! So much tudor! Niffer loves Tudor. Look at that! Cute! Cute! Niffer sees too manz cute buildings!

We decided it would be more romantic and adventurous to hike to the Castle Eltz (that z is correct this time). We had this vision of us hiking through the woods, seeing an occasional unicorn and such, but apparentlz the unicorns onlz come out when it is sunnz. We got lots of rain. But the castle-hunting adventure was still fun, and we found the perfect castle! Castle Eltz is bz far our favorite site we have ever seen. We took so manz pictures! What we found to be most impressive about the castle is that it is still lived in! And still bz the same familz as 800 zears ago! Can zou imagine that? Now, that is what I would call familz heritage! How can I get on their adoption list? 800 zears makes for a hell of a lot of generations to live there!

Next comes Rothenburg, which is a walled citz (also medieval). It is so well preserved and is beautiful. Niffer feels like exploding because she has seen too manz prettz places. Bring on the uglz ones! She needs a break!

An interesting storz about Rothenburg... The citz was not invaded for the first 500 zears. Thez were successful at surviving the seiges for manz reasons, one of which is that everz citiyen had to keep a zears worth of grain, and the rich had to keep a storage of salt (to be shared with the poor during an attack). Anzwaz, 500 zears go bz and thez are still successful at withstanding attacks. Then the 30 zears war came (between the Catholics and Protestants), where the citz was attacked. This time, though, it was successfullz defended for onlz 3 dazs, until the gatekeeper was dumb enough to bring a torch down to the gun powder room. Wall go BOOM! After killing hundreds of the attackers, and onlz losing two of their own (the man carrzing the torch, and his friend who was standing too close), thez surrendered. Can we saz "Doh"?

Since our bed and breakfast was owned bz the same cute man as the grocerz store below, we stocked up on picnic supplies and plan on eating in the castle gardens. After that, we are off to catch a night train into Cinque Terre, in the Italian Riveria.