The Vorbachtal Spruces

Germany has a great many Norway spruces. Two of them, standing over a small waterfall west of Rothenburg, are a listed natural monument, and Bavaria registers them as one thing rather than two: zwei Fichten am Wasserfall im Vorbachtal, number 47 on the town's list. Set your expectations for the waterfall honestly. The Vorbachtal is a narrow wooded valley with a stream running through it and disused limestone quarries along its sides, not a cataract. What the pair have is a setting, water at their feet and a gorge around them, and whoever drew up the designation evidently thought the combination worth keeping. The record of the hamlet of Vorbach still describes the two spruces standing east of it, designated, in the present tense. Nobody has published an age or a girth for either. Spruce does not reach the ages the limes in this town do, so what is on offer here is the pairing and the place rather than a claim to great antiquity. If somebody local knows when they went in, we would like to hear it. Getting there is half of it. The W8 Postbotenweg, one of Rothenburg's waymarked walks, heads west out of the town through the Vorbachtal and past Durrenhof, about 2.5 kilometres and forty minutes from the Marktplatz. This one is a walk rather than a stop.