Day 12 Of Our Rhine River Cruise And Globus Bus Tour Of Germany

Today we went via tour bus to Rothenburg de ober Tauber....a beautiful town..even more so when you get there early before the crowds run amok. 

See what I mean. There is hardly anyone on the streets...it is so quiet and peaceful and makes taking photographs a joy....

Interior views of St. Jakobs Church

Interesting walkway in Rothenburgob der Tauber

After leaving Rothenburg ob der Tauber we headed to Stuttgart where we were going to be visiting the Mercedes Benz Museum. For me this would be a once in a lifetime chance to be able to photograph MB vehicles dating back to the companys' early days up to future prototypes...many vehicles that you will never see on the road and only in such a museum and in pristine museum quality condition. Because there had been a few locations that we had previously visited where there were photography restrictions, I asked our Globus tour guide...a gentleman by the name of Volker whether photography was allowed. That was a huge mistake on my part because Volker out and out lied to me when I asked him about it. He stated to the whole bus that photography was not allowed and that it would be best if no one took their backpacks in because security would have you take the backpack to a locker storage area since they don't allow them inside the museum. Now here is a guide for Globus that had been in the building several times with other tours...so he knows what the rules are or at least he should know since he is an official guide. So my second mistake was listening to this guide...which I don't normally do.

So we go into this huge modern looking museum that had I believe was 6 levels of nothing but fantastic gorgeous cars. As soon as we walked into the museum I knew that I had been duped. Everyone in the building had cameras and backpacks and we are not talking about IPhone style cameras but full fledge big boy photography gear. Now here I was with nothing and all of the fantastic photo opportunities everywhere I turned. I went up to the security desk and asked the gentleman when did the rule start that no photography was allowed. He looked at me kind of funny and stated that the museum has always allowed photography. Unfortunately by this time it was too late for me to run out and get my camera especially since the tour bus had moved to a different parking location while we were in the museum. I was so angry at our guide for out and out lying to me about the rules within the museum. This wasn't the only run in that we had with our guide but I don't want to spend too much additional time going through all of the problems we had with dear Volker. The only additional thing that I will say about this guide was that one of the very first things he stated to everyone as soon as we first met and everyone got together was that if we thought that we were on vacation, that we are wrong....we are on a tour. And that statement set the tone for the whole Globus portion of our trip. We were each given a mandatory wake up call anywhere from 2-3 hours before we were supposed to board our bus. Every aspect of our "tour" for the week was dictated by rules and Volkers personal mandates. Even our precious free time was cut into by constant talking and going over the rules. With the way that this portion of our "vacation" went, we will never go on another Globus tour nor most likely anyone else's guided tours. We are much too independent travellers and thinkers to have anyone dictate every aspect of our hard earned vacation time. So for all of you Volker types out their guiding the masses and requiring them to march in step with you...never again! 

Now moving on...

This was one of the nicer hotels that we stayed at and it was in the Black Forest area. 

This hotel was in Breitnau, which is a municipality within the Baden-Wurttemburg area in Southern Germany and it is within the Black Forest.

After waking up I decided to take a walk around the area and here are some of the sights that I saw:

There was a few paths to walk that took me beside a stream in a wooded area

There was a roadway built high up above where I was standing 

I found this old house that was next to a small stream

Here are a few views of the hotel and surrounding buildings that housed various shops

One of the shop sols glass items and another one had woodworkers in it that made cuckoo clocks.

I saw this wooden bicycle in that store. 

Before we left the hotel we saw a couple of farmers with their cows moving them to greener pastures for the season 

This concludes Day 12 of our adventure. Next up the Black Forest to Lake Constance and onward to Oberammergau