A little night tour

Italy Vacation Countdown: Can I just say it? We are a little over 2 weeks away from 2 glorious weeks in Italy. Bring on the vacation…bring it on, bring it on! Let the countdown officially begin as we are T minus 16 days.

Yes, I know…these tours can be a bit cheesy. Still, we show up for the “night tours” in some of these small German towns. In Rothenberg, we were pleasantly surprised, as our night watchman for the evening was a total hoot. And, he gave the tour in English. And, he kept the tour entertaining, light, and fun.

Since we had a great experience with our first night tour, and there was not a lot of happening activities in the town of Dinkelsbuhl on a Saturday night, we said, “What the heck? Let’s give the tour a shot!” Thus, at 9 PM sharp, we were anxiously awaiting the night watchman to make his magical appearance.

How would I rate the guy? To be truthful, we only lasted about 5 minutes on his tour. No, that is not a good sign. Here’s the scorecard:

(1) Costume, appearance, and “character” of night watchman: A-
Rationale: He looked the part, and costume and props (lantern and staff were cool) were in keeping with the character. Small point deduction due to weak horn blowing; I could barely hear it across the street, so I am not sure that it would have signaled the townspeople during medieval times that “the enemy is approaching” or “fire, fire, fire”. Still, we were encouraged and pressed on with the tour.



Note: Is it my imagination, but does this man look a little like Waxahachie’s own Keith B.?

(2) Appropriateness for tourism: B
Rationale: Again, thumbs up for the concept and for having a tourist event in the evening. Thumbs down for language, as the tour was only in German. Granted, a large portion of the group was German, but this town is a tourist stop on the Romantic Road. We had seen tour buses all day, including many Asians and Anglos. Note to tourist bureau: Apparently, there is a reason that Rothenberg gets the lion’s share of tourists. Maybe consider getting a night watchman that can be speak something other than German? Just a suggestion. Again, we were not ready to give up on the tour just yet as it was a clear night and the entire town was well lit for night photos.

(3) Presentation: C+
Rationale: Maybe I am being too harsh. Plus, we only lasted 5 minutes on the tour so this may call into question my entire assessment. Regardless of the language spoken, you must speak loud enough for your tour group to hear. We had about 40-50 people in our group and unless you were on the front row, you would not have caught a word he was saying. Strike that: “…a word he was singing”. Yes, apparently the night watchman’s spiel was performed in song, rather than the spoken word. Points awarded for creativity, but more points deducted for lack of singing voice and volume issues. Final blow to rating: He was coughing. After each horn blow or sung verse, he proceeded to have a coughing spell. Yea, kinda spoils the whole thing. Maybe he was demonstrating that the life of a night watchman was a hard one, and in their jobs, they were prone to illness and disease?

(4) Tour guide capabilities: C
Rationale: As we left the night tour meeting point, the night watchman proceeded to lead the group single file, and in a serpentine fashion through the streets of Dinkelsbuhl, weaving in and out of cars, sidewalks, crossing the street to one side, only to immediately cross the road again to return to the other side. We just did not understand whether he was demonstrating the night watchman approach to making evening rounds, or whether it was a game of “follow the leader”. It was at this point that we jumped ship and set off for our own night tour.

Overall assessment: B- . Still not high enough to give him an hour of our time. Never fear, we caught some excellent night shots of Dinkelsbuhl that I’ll post tomorrow.