goodbye Italy, hello Germany

so sorry it has been a few days since we have posted. We have had a whirlwind of a few days! We are now posting from Rothenburg Germany. Here´s a recap of the past few days...

Our second day in Rome was fairly busy. I felt pretty bad from the cold, so Ben started out his day by touring the National Museum of Rome. He saw the discus statue and a few other statues and old coins. He came back to the hotel and we headed out to the colessuem and the roman forum. What an incredible place! We enjoyed a tasty lunch and then headed back to the hotel. I again wasn´t feeling well at all so we decided to stay in and eat dinner at the beehive hotel cafe.

We left early the next morning for our train to Venice. We soon discovered that I was not as sick as we originally thought.. there was a resident cat at the beehive, so we think that about 50% of my sickness came from the cat. I felt a lot better once we left and got on the train. Venice was incredible. We were pretty muesumed out, so we opted to exmplore St. Marks square, people watch, get lost in the city, explore the back alleys, tour St. Marks basillica, eat some more gelato and of course, splurge on the romantic gondola ride. Boy was it worth it. It was so wonderful to sit back and hear nothing but the sound of the paddle moving through the water. We also took a tour of the city on a water taxi while listening to Rick Steves audio guide that went along with it. We were sad to leave Venice, and even sadder when we realized that we didn´t specify which type of cochette we wanted on the night train (a cochette is a room where you sleep) and we were matched up with 4 other people in a tiny cabin. Oh well, it was an experience. of course the best sleeper in the cabin was the one man who snored very loudly. He fell asleep almost immediately. We made it through the night and eventually made it to Munich where we took two more trains to Fussen.

We arrived in Fussen and discovered that the town was in the middle of the fall leaves changing. It was absolutely gorgeous. The red looked like fire, and the gold was incredible. We took a stroll through town and went on a little walk to a local waterfall. We then took a bus up to the big castle that i´m not going to even attempt to spell. We walked up to this beautiful bridge overlooking the castle and river below. We then took a tour of the castle and then went back to town. We were so tired from not getting much sleep the night before that we took a two hour nap, ate a quick dinner, and then went back to sleep. We have never slept as well as we did last night.

Today we took some more trains and arrived in the midevil town of Rothenburg around lunch time. The leaves here are also beautiful. We did a town walk, ate dinner, and then went on a nightwatchmans tour. It was really funny and gave some great information about the history of the city. Jessie, was it the pastry balls here that Rick Steves said not to try, but they looked so good you tried them anyway? Well we are so tempted to buy one, but we haven´t yet.

Tomorrow we head to our last stop, Bacharach. Hard to believe our trip is coming to a close. To add to our flavors of gelato, we tried cafe, peach and we did find apple, and it was quite tasty. We are definitely ready for some American food. Ben has his first meal set on Red Mill, while I am leaning towards a bean and cheese burrito enchilada style.

Well, I am about to pass out from second hand smoke in this internet cafe, so I must go. oh ps- we did forget to mention that Ben got one souvenir in Italy, a bee sting.

Happy Birthday to my wonderful sister and best friend, Jessie, and to our little nephew, James-o (we can´t wait to hear duck)