Rothenburg wall

You'll see that the wall isn't very high but it's there so you might as well walk it anyway as you don't often get to visit a town with walls around it. Hard to believe that at various times in history towns had a need to keep hostile invaders out. Europe is littered with castles which bear testimony to those dark times.  I think we joined the wall at one of those town gates with the pointed towers that show in some photos.

As you can see the walkway isn't very wide and you may meet people coming the other way

You get a rooftop view from up here. 

Here's the bell tower we had climbed earlier

Some storks nesting on this next rooftop (bottom right)

A German cat relaxing on a patio chair

After an hour slowly strolling the wall we came back down to street level and visited what is probably the most photographed street scene in Rothenburg .....

Our next stop would be St. Jakob's church

What really interested us here was some woodcarving by a master of that art- Tilman Riemenschneider....

 A hammer, a chisel and a solid block of wood...

We normally limit our souvenir buying to fridge magnets but in Rothenburg we bought a cuckoo clock which was actually made in the Black Forest region. It's still going strong 12 years later. We had it shipped back to Chicago.

Back to the hotel....

Tonight we would have dinner outdoors in a lively( i.e loud) restaurant just outside St Jakob's church.
It wasn't the relaxed garden setting of the Meistertrunk the evening before but the food was good, as always seems to be the case in Bavaria.

Next up- we say goodbye to the Burg Hotel and set off on a drive to Bayreuth, Franconia, to visit Richard Wagner's Festspielhaus...

Busy walking day in Rothenburg

Our second and last day in Rothenburg began with a complimentary breakfast in the hotel with a view down to the valley below, where lies the Tauber river.

The breakfast was the typical German one of sliced meats and cheeses with the always superb section of breads and honey. Boiled eggs are brought to the table. Most of the voices around us were German.

We had a lot of walking and exploring to do today, so once fueled up we were out into the morning sunshine.

The Burg Garten was our first stop as it is a 3 minute stroll from our hotel

Here's one for the cat lovers

If you tire while walking the gardens there are benches here and there

From the gardens you can look back on the town

And you can look down into the valley, over the vineyards .

In some views there are few signs of human inhabitation
-just beautiful countryside.

We walk down past the vineyards to the valley floor

A different perspective of the town from down here, and there are no other tourists

I don't think we've ever found a place which is so pleasant to walk in as Rothenburg. There are no crowds down here in the valley and the only sounds are from the river and the birds singing in the trees. We'll be back amongst the other tourists soon but even then we can find quiet little side streets to enjoy. If you come here though you should stay overnight so you get to experience it when the tour buses leave for the day.

The road from the valley floor back to the town wall starts to climb and we follow it

Coming next-we walk the town wall....

Bird's Eye view

Back in 2003 we made the effort to climb the stairs to the top of the bell tower but that's something we wouldn't consider today. The knees would complain and talk us out of it.

St. Jakob's Church, built 1311 to 1484

What goes up must come down and soon we were back on the streets

Our early evening meal that first day was in a restaurant we have always returned to. It was just across the street from our hotel and served in a beautiful walled-in garden. Much to my regret I only took video there, not photographs to share with you.  We love to eat outdoors in good weather and a quiet garden (except for the music from a nearby blackbird) was ideal as was the food- veal schnitzels with boiled parsley potatoes (petersilienkartoffeln) and German beer. We like simple food and in Germany that's what you get, but always beautifully cooked. Service is always good too as German waiters are professionals and take pride in their job. We always eat well in Germany!

The restaurant is called the Meistertrunk should you want to visit.

As the day visitors began to leave to return to their distant hotels we strolled back to the town square.

We sat at a cafe drinking espresso when I heard a man talking loudly in the center of the square. Looking up I noticed a familiar figure from the Rick Steves program that brought us here to see Rothenburg- it was the Night Watchman.

A crowd began to form-each one will have to pay a tour fee to join him on his evening walk

He may have 100 people by now.....

The majority of them would follow him on his tour of the quiet backstreets and it would be dark during the latter part of it. He's a very good speaker (in English) and witty too.

Those that didn't join the tour stayed behind in the square with us as we were waiting to see the kitschy mechanical reenactment of the Meistertrank on the town clock. Legend has it that during the 30 Years War the town was being besieged by Catholics and the besiegers said they would call it off if someone from the town could beat their champion wine drinker. The combatants appear in two windows which open up by the clock face....they tip their flagons of wine and begin chugging it down.....tense! exciting! Who will win??

The wine-guzzling Mayor of Rothenburg wins!! (window on the right if you are someone who likes to place bets). Siege called off!! Hooray!!

Once darkness comes it's time to enjoy a drink in a cosy tavern or outside on the cobbles in the warm night air. We would stroll the dimly-lit streets on our way back to the hotel stopping for a while by St Jakob's church where the ethereal voices of the choir practicing wafted through an open window. We would visit it tomorrow.

Back in the room in the Burg Hotel we opened the windows-something we wouldn't do back in the USA in warm weather without screens on the windows to keep the big flying insects out. No flying pests here nor any fear of being burgled. Just a quiet night in Rothenburg.

A good night's sleep was guaranteed.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

We drove north from Hohenschwangau on our way to Rothenburg 175 miles away. We drove the Romantic Road rather than the A7 Autobahn, just out of curiosity as it passes through some small towns we'd not have seen otherwise including Landsberg  am Lech where Hitler was imprisoned in 1924.

Avoiding the A7 added an hour to our drive and kept our speed down to 80 mph maximum as the road is often 2 lanes wide and gets a lot of truck traffic.

Rothenburg was one of this places unknown to us until we saw a Rick Steves TV show in 2002.

Since that first visit, which we are looking at now, we have been back twice. We have always stayed at the same hotel-the Burg Hotel which I picked out online using TripAdvisor.

Rothenburg was bombed from the air in March 1945 and after the war was rebuilt as it had been. It looks like a movie set and it doesn't take long to fall for it's quiet charm. It's crowded with daytrippers during the day, coming in by rail, car or tour bus but once they leave in the early evening the town would be ours to explore and savor in peace.

It's a medieval walled town and when I first drove in through one of the town gates I immediately had to reverse out again as a tour bus was coming through. Then I drove slowly on cobbled streets, through the town square and to the Burg Hotel which is built against the town wall. I found a parking spot on the street near the hotel. They do have a small indoor garage but it's tight and dark in there.

Here I am in front of the hotel....

On that first visit we couldn't book the Bavarian Suite on the 2nd floor with it's view down into the valley below. Instead we were on the ground floor in another suite with less eye-candy appeal.
We have booked the Bavarian Suite each time since...

This is our ground floor room at the back of the hotel with a view over the garden

The ornate four poster bed

And a small part part of the living room

Basic accommodations but we are not planning to be in the rooms much. We have two days to spend here and we didn't arrive until after 3 pm.

Here's the back of the hotel, showing the town wall

It was time to get out and explore the streets of Rothenburg. The town with only 11,000 inhabitants is small enough to explore entirely on foot. We were soon in the town square with all the other tourists.

Guided tour group

Town hall clock

So much beauty here!

Even the McDonald's stays in character with the town

Next up, well get a bird's eye view from the church bell tower shown below...