Germany Trip Diary #3

The following is a diary entry from August 10, 2017 that I have lightly edited and added material in brackets.

Trip preparation post.
Previous day's post.

2017.08.10 9:00 a.m., Mittwoch, Königheim to Heidelberg, Ettlingen, and Rastatt
My plan for today:

• Buy some Königheim Kirchberg wines.
• Drive into TBB (Tauberbischofsheim) to the Stadtsbibliothek or -Archiv to see if they have copies of the "Tauber- und Frankenbote" newspaper of the mid-19th C.
• Tour the main church.
• Have a Distelhäuser on a terasse near the Tauber.
• Drive to Külsheim to meet Otto Spengler and buy a copy of his Königheimer Familienbuch.
• Bike south north along the Tauber. 

2017.08.10 21:00  (9 p.m.)
It's a good thing I wrote out the day's plan, for these days are already blending together!

In short, yesterday [today?] was full but overall unproductive in research. I first went to the tourist information bureau in the "new" Rathaus and got tentative directions to the Stadtbibliothek, but I was also informed that it opened only at 14:00. I followed the directions to find it, but I couldn't. I saw only a media museum in the given area. So I went to the St. Martinskirche and photographed much of the statuary. The building was errected in 1910-1914 in neogothic style—I wondered if the former church had been damaged in a war? The altar pieces and many side altars seemed to come from late Renaissance hands, which I assumed were saved from a previous ediface. (Reading later in the evening, I found many pieces were in fact newly made in the 20th C to imitate earlier styles.)

[I drove to Königheim and stopped at a Weinstube (Schmidt Weine Königheim) that I had noticed yesterday. I spoke with the Wirtin quite a while, asking about each of the wines, tasting a few, and discussing whether they could ship or it would be better to carry them on my flight. The shipping charges would be as billed by an international shipper like UPS, and rather expensive. She couldn't provide any experience about customs costs. So I purchased one each of three types of wine, and planned to carry them in my suitcase and declare them, whatever the customs due. —It turned out that one can carry in quite a few bottles of wine, perhaps 8 or more.]

After that, I went to Külsheim to find Otto Spengler. I had neither phone nor address, but I trusted in the small size of the town. Although the Post was closed for lunch already at 11:30, a small food shop across the street was open. The propietor didn't know th eSpenglers, bu an older customer thought they lived in the new housing area. But he suggested I go uphill to the Kirchplatz and ask there.

Up 77 steps in about 6 flights, and at the top a woman was washing her stoop. When I asked after the Spenglers, she said, "Doch, die Frau da drüben ist ja die Frau dem Spengler!"

Next day's post.