Early in the morning on Saturday the 12th of April, I took a day trip to scenic Rothenburg ob der Tauber with Cliff and Sarah of Regensblog. Cliff already posted his write-up of the trip, and he included a ton of great pictures.
Rothenburg is incredibly popular with tourists, and it’s often featured in package tours. The town is compact, but we walked past an astonishing number of hotels on the outer edges of town. We had good weather and a very light level of tourist crowding, but I shudder to think what this town would be like in June or July.
One of my favorite things about Rothenburg is the wall. Many towns in Germany still have intact sections of their original outer walls, but this is the first time I’ve seen one with the entire wall up. It’s been rebuilt over the years, so it’s not all original, but it’s still quite amazing.
I mentioned it was scenic, right? It gets used in film quite often. In fact, sections of Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows were filmed here. Not on this specific street, but here in town.
There were a couple of great fountains around town, but none of them were actually moving water around. There was a lot of construction, so perhaps they were turned down during the other work.
This is the town hall. The tallest point is the Rathausturm, a tower that you can climb for the low, low cost of €2.
This elderly tourist couple was just really adorable.
Naturally, we climbed the tower. You can actually see the outer walls, and the towers at intervals along the wall.
The wall is especially clear in this picture.
While we were walking around, we were all kind of amazed at this tree- it had clearly been encouraged to grow almost as part of the building. It was fascinating.
While walking around, we found a small cloister garden containing a very pretty green space.
I’ve lost track of which tower was which. This one was on the western side of the city.
…but this one is the actual western town gate.
This face is set into the tower on the western gate. It’s kind of interesting.
Did I mention how picturesque the city is?
This street is the Plönlein. The tower to the left is the Siebersturm, built in 1385. This is one of those views that people take pictures of quite a lot. Seriously, just put “plonlein” into a Google image search and you’ll immediately see what I’m talking about.
It was just before Easter, so these wreathy crown things are starting to show up all over Bavaria. I’m not sure what they’re called, but they’re always draped with colored eggs.
The design on the eggs is quite intricate.
This kind of archway appears all over town.
It is possible to walk along the wall. There are stairs at regular intervals to go up to the walkway.
Wooden railings keep you from walking off the edge.
This house caught our eye because the seal over the door looks a great deal like Trogdor.
Seriously, it’s an ancestor of Trodgor. Ready to burninate the countryside.
I think the wall may have been my favorite part of the city. Right behind Trogdor, that is.
We had fairly spectacular weather for the day, also. Blue skies, whispy clouds. I secretly believe that the town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber employs weather wizards to keep it pretty like this.
To break up these pictures of scenic Rothenburg, here’s a teddy bear blowing bubbles. This is at a shop in town- it took me a minute to figure out where the bubbles were coming from because it’s in an upstairs window and it’s not constant.
One last shot of the wall on our way out- this was close to where we parked for the day.
Have you ever been to Rothenburg ob der Tauber?
Whimsy. Tacos. The DMV. 
It is so touristy, but so worth it all at the same time. I loved the wall too. I tried to imagine what it would have been like running the wall in armor, bows & arrows, possibly a bucket of hot oil. Esslingen also has a nice stretch of wall to walk on, high above the city and vineyards.
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I was born an lived near Rothenburg in the Tauber valley. If you have time, leave the tourist areas and take a bike ride down along the “Liebliches Taubertal (lovely Tauber valley)” to Bad Mergentheim. Wonderful and peaceful villages and scenery. What I find most stunning is that despite beeing such a lovely area, they have plenty of high quality companies working there hidden in the forests, like EBM-Papst (Mulfingen, computer fans), Würth (Künzelsau, technical equipment), and so on. Thats what I am very proud of in my home country, that you can live in a small village, but work in a global company.
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I’ve been, but didn’t love it. Cute? yes, but so overrun with tourists you couldn’t get a picture without another tourist taking a picture in it. That was summer, however. I may be biased as I live here, but I find Bamberg every bit as cute, but more “real”.
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Those photos are gorgeous! You’ve sold it to me – I need to go there!
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What a beautiful place 🙂
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When you showed me the photo of the Trogdor house, I initially thought you had yelled “Trogdooooooor” because the house kinda looks like a thatched-roof cottage, which we all know is Trogdor’s third favorite thing to burninate. 😉 I didn’t notice the little proto-Trogdor until much later. I can really see the resemblance in the larger photo. Beautiful photos, as usual.
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We have visited 3 times so far and usually include the town on our travel plans. We have found that the tourists are usually a challenge on busy days between roughly 11am and 5pm, then most leave. We have found it a great spot to stay, choosing a hotel in the old town (within the walls) and is best during the week rather than weekends. Great food choices and wonderful wine. It is actually very magical to walk around in the evening and mornings. A great spot to travel to other wonderful places like Dinklesbuhl, Nordlingen etc. We usually plan a hike, bike ride or a trip somewhere out of town during the heavy tourist times. As they leave, the place is really nice.
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I’ve been there at least 4 or 5 times, but it was always for the Taubertal-Festival so I never visited the city itself (though sitting on a beer-bench in the Tauber looking up to the city was quite nice!).
However, I’ve read 2 novels about Rothenburg in the 14th century and I quite liked them (there’s a bit of a mystery why the city of Rothenburg put it’s former mayor to death http://www.amazon.de/dp/3257224869 and a completely fictitious novel where the mayor’s a protagonist as well http://www.amazon.de/dp/3570004945) .
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This looks adorable!! I hear it tends to be overrun with tourists though.
Maybe the fountains were still turned off for winter? Ours only just came back on within the last week or so.
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Very cute architecture. Make me feel like every building is a gingerbread house 🙂
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If you are into walled cities, give Nördlingen a look. Less touristy and one of the 3 German cities with an intact city wall. Plus, the Ries Crater Museum is housed there.
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I visited the Christmas market in Rothenburg and loved it! But so funny… the whole time I was there, I was thinking, “I feel like I’m in a Harry Potter movie”.. I had no idea scenes were actually filmed there! Glad you enjoyed your visit!
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