Day 3 - December 12 - Mespelbrunn, Rosstal

This is the luggage AFTER storing several bags

We skipped breakfast - miss having Hyatt Diamond status for the first time in years (it offers free breakfast)! We stored a big suitcase (with two smaller bags inside) to be picked up January 30.  Didn't leave the hotel until almost noon. 

Around 1 PM Ron mentioned we needed to look for a restaurant, as the "witching hour" was coming (most restaurants close at 2 PM). We were nearing Mespelbrunn, and from some remote corner of my mind I pulled up a memory of having lunch near Mespelbrunn Castle once. So, Ron exited the Autobahn and I programmed the Garmin for "points of interest - food", and we followed the directions to the nearest restaurant, Altes Wirtshaus, which was directly across from the little "Schloss". It was in the Hotel Schloss Mespelbrunn, and was the place I had remembered, and it was just the kind of place we were looking for. 

Schloss Herrentoast (pork medallions with cheese & mushrooms)

Pfannkuchen with cheese & mushrooms

Area brochure with view of Schloss

Chapel we saw near Schloss Mespelbrunn

That afternoon the Garmin instructed us to leave the Autobahn near Bamberg, and we followed back roads to Rosstal, the small village where we lived in 1973. There we had reserved a room at the Kapellenhof, the pension where Ron stayed the first month  - at that time the company required that the man move a month before the wife in order to settle into business routine, choose a house and car, etc. It seemed then (and still does) a bit silly since it is the wife who would be in the house most of the day. 

The hotel had added two annexes to the original building. I had requested a room on the ground floor, which, unfortunately, put us in the annex across the street. It was a rather spartan room, with the bathroom in the hallway across from the room (but the hallway was private to the room). There was no door on the bath facilities, only a curtain! There was a door to the sleeping area, so that afforded some privacy to the bath. The shower was so tiny I was glad I had washed my hair that morning! The floors were linoleum tile and there was no easy chair. In other words, a room that would have been appropriate 40-years ago - so nostalgia comes home to roost. But, the price was right!

We walked across to the gasthaus for dinner. Pork again for Ron - a strammer max for me. 

Strammer Max with smoked ham

Schweinebraten with potato knodel

Restaurant in Kapellenhof

We had been to this place so many times - even took my parents there when they visited in 1973. We lived just up the hill from this establishment.

So, that was a quiet day of reminiscing and making our way slowly south.