Hameln, Germany, is the home of the Pied Piper legend.

We are nearly halfway through our tour. We were following the Weser River in Germany. The first stop was Hameln. This town is where the Pied Piper legend originated. In 1284, according to the town's legend, Hameln was full of rats that were probably responsible for a plague.

The Pied Piper said he'd get rid of them for a price. The town agreed and the Pied Piper did get rid of the rats. The town mayor, however, stiffed the Pied Piper using the bogus premise that the Pied Piper filled the town with the rats in the first place so he could bribe the town to get rid of them. In retaliation, on June 26, 1284, the Pied Piper took nearly all the kids as ransom. Apparently, the Pied Piper and the kids were never seen again.

To this day, Hameln claims this to be a true story. One version claims that a total of 130 kids followed him out of town while the adults were in church celebrating the day of St. John and St. Paul (I guess kids weren't allowed to celebrate with the adults). Only three kids remained in town - one was lame, one was deaf, and the third was blind. The word "pied" refers to the multi-colored clothing worn by the Pied Piper.

Next, we went to Höxter. A cool small town, but they had no great legend to exploit. We didn't spend a lot of time there.

We then went to a Spa. A Spa in Germany is a natural hot springs where the town built a large swimming area to take advantage of the natural hot mineral waters. Wanda took some photos of the Spa with her cell phone but they did not turn very well. Sad! It was a great water experience. We later stayed at a small but free RV park. It was a quiet pleasant place with nice bathrooms.

A plaque in Hameln showing a map of the Pied Piper Town. 

Hameln has a large downtown that spans many blocks. The entire market area is pedestrian-only.

The Hameln Historical Museum.

A Woolworth store? It was there and it was open. I was not expecting to see a genuine Woolworth store operational anywhere in the world.

Built in 1583.

If you look closely in the lower left of the photo, you can see a guy dressed up as the Pied Piper. Hameln really capitalizes on their legend. 

The landmark Market Church St. Nicholas.

This is the Rattenfangerhause or the Pied Piper's House. The stone facade dates back to 1602, although the building itself is much older. Today, it is an art museum owned by the city.

Another part of the pedestrian-only downtown featuring outdoor restaurants.

This building dates back to the year 1500.

This fine example of ornate old-world architecture is the Bürgerhus. To the best of my knowledge, it was built in 1560 and is a restaurant featuring fine dining. It isn't just a burger joint.

The Bürgerhus iconic front door. 

Höxter was the next town we visited. It was smaller and lacked a cool legend, but it was another fine example of gorgeous German architecture.

The Flair Hotel Stadt Höxter in Höxter.

The interior of the Höxter Cathedral. It was fairly small by European standards.

The RV park we stayed at. The water spa that we visited is in the white building way in the left background.

The RV park is just a nice flat parking area on the edge of town. It was boondocking as there were no electric or water hookups, but it was free if I remember correctly.

NO, I DO NOT HAVE A BATHROOM FETISH. This is the bathroom facility for the tiny municipal RV parking spot that we stayed at. You just don't find this kind of public bathroom pride in America. Europe approaches all of its infrastructure, from building preservation, to landscaping, to private yard maintenance, to roads, and even its public bathrooms in a much more meticulous manner than we do. Yet, over the centuries, Europe has been involved in countless horribly destructive wars. How do you square this? OK, maybe bathrooms can trigger some odd philosophical thoughts.

VINTAGE VENTURES: The reason I write my travel journals is to be able to look back and remember our ventures. A secondary reason was to allow me to organize all my trip photos. I have thousands of photos. Organizing them into a travelogue made sense. The trick was to figure out how to organize all these photos and journals into a cohesive story. My early attempts failed miserably because I couldn't figure out how to meld photos and text into a structure that worked. It was when Wanda came across the Constant Contact format that allowed me to, not only develop a coherent story of our trips, but to be able to send them to friends, family, and anybody else that is interested.

It is my plan to take each of these early trips, which I call, Vintage Ventures, and collate them into Constant Contact. I hope you find some value in them, even though they are, well, vintage.

Dave and Wanda

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