Exploring the Romantic Road after a few Delays

 Wednesday

We had smooth sailing all the way to Frankfurt and arrived a little early.

Got our bags and sped through immigration and headed for the car rentals.  There was EuroCar, Hertz, Sitx, all with no lines, and ours,
Avis with probably 50 people waiting in line for 2 agents.  A third agent was always walking to the end of the line to see if the last person was an ‘Avis Preferred’ so they could move to the front of the line.

The agent walking back to pull 'Avis Preferred' members to the front of the growing line.

After 30 minutes of not moving or moving backward, I went over to a vacant Sitx agent and asked if they had a car available.  Since I didn’t have a reservation with them, I’d have to wait until the afternoon.

So I got on line and made a reservation, got my confirmation, and went to the counter to pick up the car.  The gal there said I got the ‘weekend rate’ that doesn’t start until noon.  It was 11:00 and we’d have to wait.  Noon was the earliest available time on their website.  The Avis line wasn’t moving, and Sitx was quite a bit cheaper so we grabbed a bite.

I later realized that Avis price was in dollars and Sitx in Euros.

Found a McDonalds with unlimited soda refills and set up camp.

I tried a different agent at 11:45 and after a number of fake outs she finally produced a key for a black 4 door Mercedes C180 with all the whistles and bells.  The navigation system was real nice, but didn’t have a touch screen.

There were buttons, a dial that twisted, tilted, and could be pressed.  A hand rest over most of the dial that was touch sensitive and you could draw letters instead of dialing them on the board.  The manual was in German of all things, but we managed to dial in our hotel.  (I had them switch it to English before we left the lot.)

Navigation controls for GPS & Radio.

So left Frankfurt by about 1:00 and were on our way to the hotel which was a little over  2 hours away.

We stopped a few times at cities that looked interesting and strolled through.  It was quite warm in the afternoon, probably in the 80's.

 Found this church that was empty and wandered around.

 A walled medieval city, maybe Rothenburg that we visited and walked on part of the wall.

 From the wall walkway

 Found the famous Christmas Shop.  Looked like Jeannie's house on steroids!

Found our hotel in Dinkelsbohl ,the Goldene Rose without too much trouble.  Pretty small room with a view of another building across the alley.