Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Before you go — this is a complete walled town, which is rare

Most German towns that call themselves medieval have a gate, a stretch of wall and a parking lot where the rest used to be. Rothenburg still has the whole circuit: wall, towers, gatehouses, and a covered walkway along the top of most of it. You can walk around the entire town from above, for nothing.

21 of our 32 photographs here are of the wall or taken from it, across two visits nine years apart, and that is not an accident of what we found interesting. It is what there is.

• The old town is tiny. You can cross it in ten minutes. This is a place that rewards slowness rather than distance.
• It is a day trip for most people and should not be. The coaches arrive late morning and leave mid-afternoon. Before and after that the streets are close to empty.
• Nearly everything outdoors is free. The wall, the gates, the squares and the view over the Tauber valley cost nothing at all.

The wall — the thing to actually do here

The walkway runs along the top of the wall for most of the circuit, under a tiled roof, with arrow slits at intervals looking out over the roofs one way and the country the other. It takes well under an hour at a walk, and it is the single best free thing in Bavaria.

• Go up at a gate tower and stay up. Stairs run down into the town at intervals, which is the trap — once you drop into the streets you tend not to climb back.
• The north and east stretches are the quiet ones. Most visitors do the short piece nearest the Plönlein and come back down.
• Look at the names on the stones. Much of the wall was rebuilt after 1945 with donations, and the donors' names are cut into the parapet. It is a plain, unshowy record of who paid to put a town back.
• Do it first, not last. It orients the whole place. Everything after it makes more sense.

The Plönlein, and an honest word about it

The yellow house where two lanes fork, with a tower at each end, is one of the most photographed spots in Germany. It is genuinely lovely and you should photograph it too.

• It takes four minutes. Be at peace with that. It is a corner, not an afternoon.
• Early or late, or not at all. In the middle of the day there is a line of people waiting to stand in the same spot.
• Then walk down through the gate below it. Almost nobody does, and the view back up at the town from the road underneath is better than the view everyone is queuing for.

The Christmas market, and the shop that never closes

The Reiterlesmarkt fills the market square in December, and it is small — this is a small town. Do not come to Rothenburg for the market the way you would come to Nuremberg for that one. Come for the town and take the market as a bonus.

• Käthe Wohlfahrt is open all year. The Christmas shop on the market square is a genuine oddity: a permanent, year-round Christmas store with a tree inside it in July. Whatever you think of that, it is worth walking through once.
• December here is fog and lamplight. Our winter frames are towers in mist and the valley below the walls disappearing. That is what this town does in the cold, and it suits it.
• Stay the night in December. The market closes early and the day trippers leave. An empty medieval town under lamps is the reason to be here at all.

The Medieval Crime Museum

Better than it sounds and not the tourist gimmick the name suggests. It is a serious museum about law, punishment and shame across several centuries, and it is the one paid interior here we would push you towards.

• Allow an hour and a half, more if you read. It is a real collection, well labeled, and considerably darker in subject than the pillory in the yard outside suggests.
• The pillory outside is free, and everyone takes a turn in it. Two of our own frames are exactly that, so no judgement here.

June or December?

Unlike Nuremberg, the honest answer here is that it barely matters — which is itself worth knowing.

• June gives you the wall at its best. Green country beyond it, the orchards below, and long enough light to walk the circuit after the coaches have gone.
• December gives you the atmosphere. Fog in the valley, lit towers, and a small market that does not overwhelm the town it sits in.
• Either way, sleep here. That is the decision that matters in Rothenburg, not the month.

How long?

One night and two half-days. Ours were 21 and 24 June 2015 and 11 December 2024.

Arrive mid-afternoon, walk the wall before dinner when the town has emptied, and do the museum and the lanes the following morning before the coaches. That is the whole town, properly, and it does not need longer.