Rothenburg ob der Tauber airfield review

I really cannot recommend Rothenburg ob der Tauber airfield highly enough.  Where would you like me to start: with the friendly people; the 2-3km walk into the stunning medieval walled city; the wood fired pizzas at the on-site pizzeria; or the most reasonable fees (around 4-5€ per landing)?

If you are only going to make it to one airfield in Germany, I would probably make it this one, as it just has it all.  Hmm I suppose except for asphalt if your plane requires that.

Another great thing about this airfield is that it is owned privately by the club, which means that no matter what happens in the area it's safe from developers' sticky fingers.  Fabulous.  Go there.

Ambience 10/10
Friendliness 10/10
Location 10/10
Costs: €6 landing, parking over 10h €4.50

Rothenburg odT tourist magnet extraordinaire

Many people agree that Rothenburg odT is a pretty special place with its entire medieval city walls and half timbered houses: Japanese tourists; myself; Hitler.  So given that it has a little airfield owned by the aeroclub that is 3.6km from town I really had to take Julian there to see it.

My prior knowledge of how Rothenburg tour busses operate meant that the first thing we did after tying down and putting up our tent was to go into town (at about 6pm) and have a look at it in the magical hour and a half when the tourists had gone but there was still light.

Nice gate

So pretty, I think because the old town is so large and so homogenous in style.

The next morning I woke up and my foot wouldn't fit in my shoe.  Too much bike riding you say?

He was very cute, normally I would have liked to keep him, but...  I think he was feeling it too, as he was surprisingly difficult to get rid of, each time Julian (I didn't want him to run into the tent) shook him down into the heel he scurried straight back up into the toe.

We went back into town to see what 'where everyday is Christmas' (Kathe Wohlfahrt stores) is really like in the daylight.

much better at night, right?

There were heaps of fantastic apple & pear trees on the way to Rothenburg

oops

Of course we couldn't continue being so lucky with the weather in late September, so the following morning it was still drizzling when we finally dared venture outside the tent at 10am.  We wandered over to the showers, me in my thongs (flip-flops for you English people!), to be met by a most concerned gentleman, 'Das kann ich nicht mit ansehen dass Sie bei diesem Wetter zelten, Sie mussen zu mir nach Hause kommen' (rough translation - I can't watch you tent in this weather, you have to come stay with me), my motto for this trip has been to say 'yes' to anything offered and make more friends and learn more about different cultures, so I of course said 'YES, that would be lovely'.  Which is how we ended up staying with the most lovely Dr Peter Bittner for a couple of days.

Singin' in the rain at Langenburg, home of the famous Wibele (tiny meringue like thingies, mmmmm yum)

 Peter took us to see many pretty local towns and the little things that are what make an area really nice, that only residents know about.  (Local pubs, crypts, Jugendstil churches and of course cake shops - he seems to have got my measure very quickly)

Julian & Peter in his kitchen

Really nice internal door handles, I wonder if I could make such things myself with a little blacksmithing course?

This is a really fabulous art installation in a castle that is now a retirement home / artists colony - you let ball bearings run through the nails creating music.

We of course had to experience the local brewery

One thing I particularly liked about this crypt was the different tops on the columns (not so many to be seen in this picutre)

The route to Rothenburg-ob-der Tauber: medieval fortified towns and castles

And we're off - the zeppelin over Friedrichshafen, the nearest airfield to Konstanz

After a lovely catch up with Bill and Gisi it was time to continue on.  Hmmm where to?  We were running low on time so Aachen had to be struck off the list, we had a look at going to Rheinfelden but they weren't open on a Tuesday, so we ended up deciding on a South-Western round flight: Rothenburg odT via Mannheim to the Mosel down to Rheinfelden (near Basel) then off to France.

But first a fly by of mad Ludwig's stroke of genius that bankrupted him and lead to his deposition as king of Bavaria - how could a bankrupt be head of state, before now becoming number 1 tourist attraction in Germany....  Considering that there are up to 10 000 visitors per day in June - August I think we were best seeing it from the air.

Yes it's Schloss Neuschwanstein

Depending on who you speak to I've heard mutterings about 'tasteless baroque interior', and I've got to be honest, isn't it a bit odd to be building a castle like this in 1870 when you've already got several perfectly good castles right next door that are authentic????

What's wrong with this castle (in Fuessen)?

We did hope to land in Fuessen, once we saw what a pretty little place it is, located in the foothills,so I called blind on the radio in German to ask if we could land (there were 3 gliders circling, so we figured there'd be someone on frequency).  To which I received a somewhat testy reply that there were 3 airfields on that frequency, which one did I want to land at......  Unfortunately after much discussion it turned out we were too heavy to be allowed to land there so on we went.  Foiled again by the German rules.

So the next question was where to get cheap mogas (98 octane car petrol).  Luckily Plasticpilot had printed us out a map of all the German airfields with mogas marked on it, so with a bit of an effort we managed to localise ourselves on it and start calling the appropriate airfields to see if they were open.

We finally found Aalen, which was really quite busy.  Apart from being obsessed with old open gliders, I'm also obsessed with rocket ship style canards, so I was really pleased to find this one also fuelling.

This is called a Speed Canard, it's a German factory built plane.  About 50 were made: they're fast and fuel efficient.  I want one.

 We then went for an overhead look at Dinkelsbuehl, a neighbouring town of similar beauty before continuing on to land at Rothenburg.

Medieval churches and city walls next to nice half timbered houses.  Unfortunately the weather was a bit bumpy so these two shots are the best I could do