Wednesday, June 14 – Heilbronn

On another gorgeous day, we began by driving to Augsburg for a short tour that turned long while we struggled to find what we were looking for. Eventually, we found the Fruggerei. This is the oldest social housing complex still in use in the world. It was erected in 1521 by the Frugger family, of whom I had never before heard. It boggles the mind to think that 500 years ago, commerce was sophisticated enough that they had built a huge fortune by financing the Habsburg Emperors and several Popes and Kings as well as carrying on a worldwide trade in whatever people traded in those days. They saw an obligation to give something back to their community and built this complex to house poor families. It is still in use today, although the residents now have to cope with about 2 million tourists a year. And the rules have hardly changed. Only Catholics are allowed, they have to promise to say several prayers every day, and annual rent is equivalent to .88 Euros.

From there we headed north to Nordlingen, with a stop for lunch at Schloss Harlburg. This fine sunny day was a big change from our first chilly picnic in France a couple of weeks ago.

Nordlingen is an old walled city that has been preserved pretty well intact. We split up to tour independently. On returning to the bus, we decided that most of us had had just about enough of these old cities for one trip, and decided to skip the next planned stop, Dinkelsbuhl, to make up some of the time we had lost in Augsburg.

We couldn’t miss the next stop though. The name “Rothenburg” had come up in some material I had shown Betty about Boglar. She wanted to check out whether her family had originated there. Betty, Trevor, Helmut, and I went to the Rathaus (City Hall) and managed to get the email address for the town historian, who was away on holidays. We also went to the cemetery for a cursory look around, but found nothing of interest.

The itinerary called for another stop at another old city, but the group was all in favour of an early evening lubricated with cold beer, so we went on to our stop for the night in Heilbronn. We checked in about 6 and had a couple of drinks followed by supper.