Renzen, Harsberg and Langenburg

We arrived at Frankfurt the morning of 11 February 2005 after an overnight trip from Chicago. The first thing we discovered was that in Europe, the midsize cars are barely bigger than American compacts. We ended up carrying bags on our laps as we drove the two hours to the twon of Pfedelbach, where my distant cousin, Peter Fromhold, lives.

As before on our trip in 2003, we stayed at the Haus am Limes, a ferienwhnongun owned by the Family Truckenmüller. The first three days were spent in the general vicinity of the region of Hohenloe.

Pictured below are sights we saw those first few days, including the apartment at Haus am Limes, the small village it was loacted in, named Renzen, a trip to Waldenburg, and Peter's birthday party at the Gastätte Löwen.

The very small village of Renzen, picture taken from the second floor apartment we rented at Haus Am Limes. The large apartment contained two bedrooms, one large bathroom and a half-bath, a large undivided room containing kitchen, dining area and livingroom, which had a sleeper couch. There is also a patio door leading out to a very nice patio.







This is Langenburg Castle, located north of Swabisch Hall. It was a rainy, dark and dreary day, and as it turned out for most of the trip, not a good day for taking pictures, even with my digital camera. Which, on this day, I found we left the apartment without me brining along any blank diskettes. So for this day, I only made a few shots of Langenburg. Unfortunatly, we next visited Krautheim, where the Fromhold family came from. So, without any spare diskettes, I didn't get any pictures of the castle. Nor did I get pictures of Niedernhall. In this town, we swam in the town's hallenbad(Indoor pool). A remarkable thing about Germany, they keep the water in their pools nice and warm. Plus, they have jets along the side to massage muscles.


Interior shot of the basement dining room of the Gastätte Löwen. The dinner was for the 60th birthday of my cousin Peter Fromhold, and was attended by his family. The food was great, and unlike our first visit in 2003, we really did like the food more this trip. We also sampled the localy made liquid refreshments, in particular the plum schnapps.







After dinner and dessert, we discovered the German custom of taking a walk after the meal. Harsberg, where the restaraunt is located, is only 2km from Renzen, and we walked to there and back. On the walk, we visited the old village stackade. It's a one-room jail, no heat, containing just a cot and a bucket for the inmates 'convenience'.







In the left foreground is Renzen. In the right background is the nearby village of Unterstienbach. You can see the heavy snow starting to fall in htis picture, and by evening, we had about two inches. I took this picture at about half-way up the hill, just at the edge of the woods. Behind me and towards teh top, is located the Limestrasse, which was the wall built by the Romans in the 1st century to mark their eastern border against the Barbarians. Nearby Öhringen was founded at this time, and has the remains of a Roman bath there.