It was an usual gloomy weekday afternoon in London where I made my way to the top of the Tower bridge and just when I was about to dive into River Thames for a fun experience, my phone rang on the loudest loudspeaker. I woke up shirtless on my London bed and picked up the call, it was my sister from Germany on the other end of the call. At this moment, I’m speaking to her after ages (to be honest, I’m not the best at keeping in touch with the loved ones, but I fucking love them to death.) So, as she says “Hi Ruthu”, I’m cursing her (on the inside) for waking me up as early as 3PM in the afternoon and ruining my tower jumping dream. Even before I could process her first sentence, her second sentence woke me up like a double shot espresso. She said to me “I miss home, can you come see me”. At this point in my life, I had just completed my masters with a merit from UCL and had a fanatical travel plan set in a couple of days. I didn’t think twice and simply cancelled all those plans, flights and booked my flight to Frankfurt, where she makes a living for herself like a boss. I would have never sacrificed travel plans for anybody on planet earth. But, my sister the boss woman that she is would never let factors like homesickness etc affect her. So I decided to drop all my plans and go see her. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to…

And also because my mother from India would have found a way to kill me in Germany. Jk.

The bright side to a cancellation of big travel plans was that I was finally getting to eat legit dosas at her home and also travel around Germany #withher. We ditched the idea of going around Frankfurt because the only interesting things were the bridges, Haagen-Dazs and this old dame below.

Instead decided to visit an old medieval town called Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

We decided on this town so that we could spend all our time talking and walking around small streets, instead of spending time on planning extravagant city travel. It allowed us to have good conversations, laugh, create memories and simply have a good quality brother-sister time. I made her smile at the end of it all.

WHAT WE DID IN ROTHERNBURG OB DER TAUBER

Drove up to the destination and didn’t consider other modes of transport

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RELAX! the car prices in Germany are inexpensive, otherwise I’d be the last one to rent a car over public transport. The rewards of commuting by car are that it makes travel seem like an adventure. I SAW CAFE THAT’S UPSIDE DOWN, WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING. So, HIRE A CAR! You must have done some good deeds in life to get a chance to experience driving on German autobahn roads. Don’t miss it.

Took a stroll around the all famous old town walls

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The walk around this massive gatehouse from the 1500s provides breathtaking views of the town throughout the long saunter. The rustic walls not only gave us the feeling of strolling around in a small German town during the 15th century, but they also allowed my sister and I to reminisce the childhood times at our grandparents during the early 2000s, when we used to play hopscotch.

Ate a Schneeball and Apfelkuchen

After all the hard work of soaking in the German history and laughter, we took a break to eat a Schneeball. It is a fried dough pastry that is particularly renowned in Rothenburg. Let me be honest with you, it absolutely sucked. To start off, it looked ridiculous and moreover it tasted like flavoured air. We decided to mask the bad taste of a Schneeball with the local Apfelkuchen, which is basically a German apple pie with vanilla custard. I thanked every waiter slash chef slash baker slash human slash living being slash non-living being in that particular restaurant for feeding me that bowl of pure magic. I highly recommend both of them to be tried at least, if not enjoyed.

Took a picture of (at) one of the most picturesque spots in Germany

14th century 21st century

Plonlein is a small square sorts, which lives up to the hype of being THE most picturesque spots in town. The colourful buildings and eye catching sign boards contribute to making this spot look like an old piece of art from the 14th century, that was well maintained.

While you are at it, if you are a fan of Lindt, walk into their exclusive cafe. Tbh, its simply stacked with Lindt chocolates and serves below average hot chocolate.

Experienced the Crime museum and went WTF

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I’m not the biggest fan of museums, but as we had time in hand and the interesting theme behind the museum, we decided to give it a shot. This museum deals with the crime and punishment methods that were in place during the medieval period. I’m into weird things hence I personally enjoyed this grisly museum experience. On the other hand, my sister was least appreciative of the whole experience. But overall, it is a one of a kind experience for anyone, so I highly recommend it.

Visited the local stores on both sides of the streets

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On both sides of the streets, there are plenty of good-looking souvenir shops. Particularly, the shops that sell these old items from the medieval times are quite interesting to enter and explore. I picked up a pointless about-to-tear postcard from the 16th century. Love it.

PS- Look around for a butter-dish and buy one; they are good-looking souvenirs.

St. Jacob’s Church

I’d say its just another handsome looking church that you find across Europe. However, it was still worth the visit, as it was built in 1485 and to date its maintained as if it was from the 21st century.

In recent times at Brokelings, Mayank has taken a lot of interest and time out to promote women travel in India. I understand that travelling like the way I did in Germany with my sister is sometimes not that easy in India, thus we request and insist all the men out there to take time off and travel with your sister/mother/girlfriend etc just to ease them into the idea of travelling alone.

When this story went up on Instagram, we had a bunch of messages coming in and most of them were disheartening to read. “My brother stays in the same city and doesn’t meet me”, “my husband travels every other month and refuses to travel with me once in a year”, “my father refuses to send me out due to safety issues” yada yada! If you don’t take the first step, nobody will do it for you. So, stop being those sad, old backward bunch of men and the next time let your women travel #withher girl or boy gang or travel along #withher or simply let her travel #withher self. She can figure her way out!

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Have a look into my my instagram, I guarantee that you will not be disappointed. Later!