Destination: Germany

As we starve this virus by staying home, I keep imagining Europe in the Middle Ages as it suffered through repeated plagues. In a town like Germany’s Rothenburg, after dark, when the streets are lonely, you can imagine those “take out your dead” days when up to a third of the population (mostly the poor) died. The first symptom? Usually a sneeze. (That’s when people first started saying “bless you” after an ah-choo.) Thankfully, today’s pandemic is nothing like the Great Plague, and I’m confident that we’ll soon be back on those enchanting streets of towns like Rothenburg after dark. For a sneak preview, join me now in one of my favorite towns in Germany as we follow the “night watchman” on his entertaining rounds at twilight.

Even if we’ve had to postpone trips to Europe, I believe a daily dose of travel dreaming can actually be good medicine. Here’s another one of my favorite travel memories — a reminder of what’s waiting for you in Europe at the other end of this crisis.

The walled town of Rothenburg, midway between Frankfurt and Munich, offers the best look possible at medieval Germany. And in this theme park of a town, the best ride is the night watchman’s town walk. Each night through the tourist season, with his eyebrows frozen in a raised position, the night watchman listens to the clock tower clang nine times. Then he winks, picks up his hellebarde (long-poled axe), and lights his lantern. Welcoming the English-speaking group gathered in 15th-century Rothenburg, he looks believably medieval in his black robe, long curly hair, and scraggly beard. But the twinkle in his eyes admits, “I’m one of you.”

With an insider’s grin he begins: “It was a bad job, being medieval Rothenburg’s night watchman — low esteem, low pay, dangerous work. Only two jobs were lower: the grave digger and the executioner. Yes, this was a dangerous job. All the good people were off the streets early. He would sing the ‘all’s well’ tune at the top of the hour through the night. You didn’t want to hear the night watchman at three in the morning, but you were glad he was still alive.

“These days, the job’s more respectable: People take photos of me,” he continues. “And it’s no longer dangerous, because you’re all coming with me.” The night watchman’s camera-toting flock of 30 tourists, already charmed, follows his bobbing lantern down the narrow, cobbled lane.

Stopping under a sign announcing Kriminal Museum, we watch the rusted old dunking cage swing in the breeze. The night watchman walks over to the stocks that stand empty next to the museum door and says, “If you know what’s good for you, tomorrow you’ll visit our Kriminal Museum.”

He opens the top half of the stocks then slams it shut, saying, “A naughty boy might be put in the stocks. We rub salt on his soles and bring the goats. But inside, you’ll learn about more gruesome tools of torture and more embarrassing tools of humiliation.”

Pausing to survey the group, he adds, “Like a metal gag for nags.”

He scans the group again. His eyes stop on me and he asks, “Are you from Rothenburg?”

“Nein,” I say.

“Very good,” he says. “Please come here.”

As I move to the front he continues. “We were 6,000 here in Rothenburg. In those days, around here, only Nürnburg and Augsburg were bigger. The Kaiser made us a free Imperial City. Such a city was given special privileges. The top privilege: We had our own court of justice. Rothenburg’s citizens must be tried by their own court.”

Shaking his head sadly, he puts his robed arm on my shoulder. “And you are not protected by our court,” he announces. “We get a half day off when there’s a hanging. Do you know anything about Herr Baumann’s missing beehive?”

Again I say, “Nein.”

“You have no rights here, and we could use a half day off. You, my friend, have a problem. Local authorities might just allow a hanging.”

In the good old days, death sentences started with your basic execution and then got worse. The legal concept of “cumulation” meant a criminal’s punishments would multiply with his crimes. While that petty beehive thief might simply be hung, an adulterous beehive-thieving murderer could be dragged to the place of execution with painful stops along the way for pinching with red-hot tongs. If he were guilty of more crimes, he’d be tied to stakes over timbers so a big guy could bounce a wagon wheel on his arms and legs, breaking all his bones. Thoroughly “broken by the wheel,” he would then be woven through the spokes of that wheel and hoisted high for all to see. Finally, his hanging could be fast or slow. It depended on the verdict.

Sometimes even death wasn’t harsh enough. In cases when two capital offenses were committed, a criminal’s corpse would be “quartered” by four horses heading out in different directions.

A town’s gallows, a medieval symbol of justice, was placed high for more spectacle. The most important criminals were hung on higher platforms in anticipation of greater crowds. Bodies of particularly dishonorable criminals were left out to rot. Some were left in a cage so birds could get to their bodies…but relatives couldn’t.

Looking at me again, the night watchman says thoughtfully, “So, you’re not from Rothenburg.” Then, turning abruptly, he walks down the street. Mesmerized, we follow.

He stops under an old-fashioned streetlight and says, “It was a dirty time.” Pointing with his boot to a gutter in the cobbles, he continues, “All the garbage — from the people and from the animals, too — it went into the road. They had this ditch in the middle of the street. People tried to hit the ditch. This was not a good system. Summer was stinking. The rich left for countryside homes. Back then it wasn’t the Romantic Road. It was the Filthy Road. And this filth gave us the plague. The plague was a big killer. In one terrible year, in Rothenburg…one out of every three people died.”

We follow him farther to the ramparts at the edge of town. Overlooking the valley, the watchman says, “Rothenburg was never conquered until 1631. There was a siege. The armory, which was along this wall, blew up. Double disaster: We had a hole in the wall and no ammunition to make a defense. To be looted by 40,000 mercenaries was no fun. They were Catholics, so it was even worse.

“Our town was broken. And for the rest of the Thirty Years’ War, Rothenburg lay wide open, undefended. We were sacked many times. Between lootings we suffered plagues.”

Popping from an alley back onto the main square, our hooded friend concludes, “From 1648 — when the war and plagues stopped — time stood still in Rothenburg. Centuries of poverty…and nothing changed. Rothenburg’s misfortune put the town into a deep sleep. And that is why you are here today. Now I must sing the ‘all’s well.’”

After finishing his short melody, he blows a long haunting tone on his horn. Then he ends by saying, “You, my friends, should hurry home. Bed is the best place for good people at this hour.”

(This story is excerpted from my upcoming book, For the Love of Europe — collecting 100 of my favorite memories from a lifetime of European travel. It’s coming out in July, and available for pre-order. And you can also watch a video clip related to this story: Just visit  Rick Steves Classroom Europe  and search for Rothenburg.)

In Europe’s tourist towns, the best social moments combust after a long day of work, and after the guests say good night.

With so many of us stuck at home for the foreseeable future, I believe a daily dose of travel dreaming can actually be good medicine. Here’s another one of my favorite travel memories — a reminder of what’s waiting for you in Europe at the other end of this crisis.

After hours in an Irish pub in Galway, the door is locked and the musicians play on. On the Italian Riviera, the dishes are washed, the anchovies are eaten, and the guitars come out. And in small-town German hotels, the family and the hired help stow their workplace hierarchy with their aprons and take out a special bottle of wine.

During many visits to Rothenburg, Germany’s ultimate medieval town, I’ve sat down hurriedly at the Golden Rose restaurant to update my guidebook listing, then dashed away. Tonight, I’ve decided to sit down and simply relax with the Favetta family. We gather around the Stammtisch: the table you’ll find in most German bars and restaurants reserved for family, staff, and regulars. (An invitation to the Stammtisch is a good life goal.) Except for our candlelit table, the once noisy restaurant is empty and dark.

Well into our second glass of wine, we indulge in the sport many in the tourist business enjoy: cultural puzzles. The daughter, Henni, asks me, “Why can’t Americans eat with a knife? You cut things with your fork.”

I confess I know nothing about holding silverware. And just to hit a Yankee when he’s down, she adds, “And you people love to drink plain water — we call this water the American Champagne. But you never eat liver or blood sausage. The Japanese love those.”

I ask Henni if it’s not dangerous to generalize about other cultures.

She says, “Even deaf people generalize.”

When I ask how, she explains with the help of her hands. “In international sign language, ‘Germany’ is my finger pointing up from my head,” she says, making a fist-and-finger Prussian helmet. ‘France’ is this wavy little mustache,” she continues, wiggling a finger across her upper lip. “And ‘Russia’ is the Cossack dancer.” Henni bounces on her chair and hooks her thumbs at her waist, while her index fingers do a jaunty little cancan dance.

“And what’s the sign for America?” I ask.

“The fat cat,” she says, propping up an imaginary big belly with her arms.

Her father, Rino, whose English is worse than my German, struggles to follow the animated discussion. Whenever the conversation reaches a spirited tempo, he jumps in, brings it to a screeching halt, and sends it in a completely new direction.

Pretending to add to Henni’s thoughts, he leans over to me. As if a magician sharing a secret, he holds his hand palm down in front of my face. Stretching his thumb high and out, he forms a small bay in the top of his hand. Peppering in a little snuff tobacco, he announces, “Snoof tobak.” With Henni’s help, Rino clarifies. Struggling with the word, he says, “anatomical snuffbox,” and snorts. With a quick sniff, I try it, and it works.

As noses wiggle, I ask Henni if living in a tourist fantasy-town gets old.

“I will live and die in Rothenburg,” she answers. “Teenagers here dream of leaving Rothenburg. One by one they try the big city — Munich or Nürnberg — and they come home. Summer is action time. Winter is quiet. The tourists, they come like a big once-a-year flood. We Rothenburgers sit and wait for you to float by.”

“Like barnacles,” I add cheerfully, even though I figure that word is not in Henni’s English vocabulary.

Henni looks at me like I just burped. “People who live here have magic vision,” she says. “If we want to, we can see no tourists and only local people. Rothenburg is a village. We know everyone.”

The impromptu party continues as I learn that, even in the most touristy town in Germany, you can still make a genuine, cross-cultural connection. Sitting at the Stammtisch after hours, this conversation becomes my treasured souvenir.

(This story is excerpted from my upcoming book, For the Love of Europe — collecting 100 of my favorite memories from a lifetime of European travel. It’s coming out in July, and available for pre-order. And you can also watch a video clip related to this story: Just visit  Rick Steves Classroom Europe  and search for Germany.)

Relaxing at the spa resort of Baden-Baden in southern Germany’s Black Forest, I see more naked people in two hours than many Americans see in their entire lives.

Travel dreams are immune to any virus. And, with  so many of us stuck at home,  I believe a daily dose of travel dreaming can  actually be  good medicine. Here’s  another one of my favorite travel memories — a reminder of what’s waiting for you in Europe  at  the other end of this crisis.

Ever since the Roman emperor Caracalla bathed in the mineral waters here, Baden-Baden has welcomed those in need of a good soak. In the 19th century, the town was Germany’s ultimate spa resort, and even today, the name Baden-Baden is synonymous with relaxation in a land where the government still pays for its overworked citizens to take a little spa time. And since the beginning, the dress code has always been naked.

Americans who can’t handle nudity don’t know what they’re missing. My first time was with some German friends — a classy, good-looking young couple. We were swept into the changing area with no explanation. Suddenly they were naked and I felt like the Road Runner just beyond the cliff’s edge. Then — easing up, and stripping down — I realized it’s not sexy…simply open and free.

For me, enjoying the Friedrichsbad Roman-Irish Baths in Baden-Baden is one of Europe’s most elegant experiences. Traditional, stately, indoors, these baths are extremely relaxing… and not very social. It’s just you, your body, and an unforgettable experience.

Wearing only the locker key strapped around my wrist, I start by weighing myself — 92 kilos. The attendant leads me under the industrial-strength shower. This torrential kickoff pounds my head and shoulders and obliterates the rest of the world. He gives me plastic slippers and a towel, ushering me into a dry-heat room with fine wooden lounges — the slats too hot to sit on without the towel. Staring up at exotic tiles of herons and palms, I cook. After more hot rooms punctuated with showers, it’s time for my massage.

Like someone really drunk going for one more glass, I climb gingerly onto the marble slab and lay belly-up. The masseur holds up two mitts and asks, “Hard or soft?” In the spirit of wild abandon, I growl, “Hard,” not even certain what that will mean for my skin. I get the coarse, Brillo-Pad scrub-down. Tenderized like a slab of meat, I feel entirely relaxed. The massage is over, and with a Teutonic spank, I’m sent off into the pools.

Nude, without my glasses, and not speaking the language, I bumble like Mr. Magoo in flip-flops through a series of steam rooms and cold plunges.

The steamy labyrinth leads to the mixed section. This is where the Americans get uptight. The parallel spa facilities intersect, bringing men and women together to share the finest three pools in Friedrichsbad. Here, all are welcome to drift under the exquisite domes in perfect silence, like aristocratic swans. A woman glides in front of me, on her back. Like a serene flotilla, her peaceful face and buoyant breasts glide by, creating barely a ripple. On my right, an Aryan Adonis, staring at the ethereal dome, drapes himself over the lip of the pool. Germans are nonchalant, tuned in to their bodies and focused on solitary relaxation. Tourists are tentative, trying to be cool…but more aware of their nudity. I remind myself there’s nothing sexy about it. Just vivid life in full flower.

The climax is the cold plunge. I’m usually not a fan of cold water — yet I absolutely love this. You must not wimp out on the cold plunge.

For my last stop, the attendant escorts me into the “quiet room” and asks when I’d like to be awakened. I tell him closing time. He wraps me in hot sheets and a brown blanket. Actually, I’m not wrapped…I’m swaddled: warm, flat on my back, among 20 hospital-type beds. Only one other bed is occupied; the guy in it is as still as a corpse. I stare up at the ceiling, losing track of time and myself. Sometime later, I’m jolted awake by my own snore.

As I leave, I weigh myself again: 91 kilos. I’ve shed two pounds of sweat. It would have been more if tension had mass. Stepping into the cool evening air, I’m thankful my hotel is a level, two-block stroll away.

Back in my room, I fall in slow motion onto my down comforter, the big pillow puffing around my head. Wonderfully naked under my clothes, I can only think, “Ahhh…Baden-Baden.”

(These daily stories are excerpted from my upcoming book,  For the Love of Europe — collecting  100  of my favorite memories from a lifetime of European travel, coming out in July.  It’s available for pre-order. And you can also watch a video clip related to this story: Just visit Rick Steves Classroom Europe and search for Germany.)