We were fascinated a couple of years ago when we visited Rothenburg; so much so that we put it on our list of places to return to next time we were in Germany. This week, we did just that, and the weather was in full cooperation. Last visit, we had only one full day to discover the city and it was a near total wash-out. We left our Nikons in the room and braved the city streets with rain gear and phone cameras, but weren’t too happy about talking our phones out in the rain either.
This time the weather cooperated completely. We budgeted two full days to re-discover this town, and ended up walking as much of it as we could in that time.
If you want to take a walk back in time, you can walk the wall built around Rothenburg in the 13th century. Photo by Donald Fink.
Rothenburg is generally regarded as one of Europe’s best preserved Medieval towns. There are a couple of reasons for this that date back to 1631 when it was occupied by an unfriendly Army, and again a couple of years later when it was ravaged by the Black Plague. There were some tense moments again in World War II, but again the city came out in better shape than many European towns at the time. We wrote about all this in an earlier story, and you can see our remarks in that first article, about Rothenburg. There are some images in that article that we managed to get in between rain that’s worth a look.
Rothenburg sits just southwest of Nuremberg, but it was an easy drive from Frankfurt too. You can click on “View Larger Map” above to see a full page map of the area.
Here’s a quick video showing our impression of the town of Rothenberg. Enjoy.
Rothenburg over the Tauber is a medieval city in Germany, southeast of Frankfurt, and west of Nuremberg. At one time, it was the third largest city in Germany and the largest completely walled city. It dates back over 1,000 years and today is one of Germany’s treasures. The name Rothenburg ob der Tauber means “Red fortress over the Tauber”. Rot is the German word for red, referring to the red tiles on the roofs while burg refers to a fortification. Ob der means “over the”, and of course Tauber is the name of the river that runs by. Continue reading →
