Gregory gave us a ride to the train station, Roman saw us all the way to the train, and we were off to Rothenburg. Rothenburg is one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe and offers a truly nice experience. We reserved a room in a small hotel inside the walls of the old city, nestled among the sites we were there to see.
The house was originally built as a manor in 1536. Later in 1704, it was converted into a small brewery. It managed to escape being ravaged during the Thirty Years War and also survived the Second World War without damage. When we walked into a hotel the owner greeted us warmly. He didn't ask for our passports, didnít request to make credit card imprints, just simply handed us the room key and helped us to take the luggage upstairs. He also gave us the map of the town and gave a few restaurant and sightseeing recommendations. The room was nice and the hotel location was so convenient that we could go to and from our room during the day with little effort.
We started by wandering about looking for a nice place to eat and taking a few photos along the way.
After enjoying a nice meal, we set out on a walking tour using the city map as a guide. Although there are quite a few beautiful buildings in Rothenburg, we felt that it isn't a single building or two that dominates the sightseeing, but rather the entire town as a whole is what makes it so unique and special. In the Middle Ages, Rothenburg was Germany's second-largest city. After the Thirty Years War the once prosperous town had no money to modernize, thus it has become frozen in time (fortunately for us).
We covered a good portion of the town before stopping by the room to freshen up a bit.
When we continued our walking, we tracked back to the Rödertor, the 14th century city gate thru which we entered the town earlier, and noticed the stairs leading to the top of the city walls. We decided to take a walk on city wall so up the stairs we went.
The wall surrounds entire city and a good portion of it has a covered walkway. It offers many great views of the city.
After traversing about a third of the city wall, we came down at Spital Bastion and explored this impressive bastion.
We then continued from the ground and soon found our way to one of Rothenburg's most famous locations - the Plönlein (Little Square).
The Plönlein is one of the most photographed spots in the world and therefore very popular with tourists. It would have been hard to take a picture without crowds during the day. But by early evening day-trippers were gone and we were able to photograph it just like we wanted. We returned later with a tripod and by that time we had the site all to ourselves. The city looked so much more quaint and authentic in the evening with streets almost empty, which was one of the reason we chose to stay overnight in Rothenburg.
We went to the main square at 8:00PM to see der Meistertrunk (Master Draught or long drink). It relives a legend going back to 1631 when the city was saved by a former mayor by emptying a gigantic (3 1/4 litres) wine tankard in one big gulp.
As we were watching the animation, the night watchman showed up to begin the tour but so did the rain and we called it a day; and a nice day it was.
