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It turns out that, along with some basic research, a better knowledge of German prepositions would have told me Rothenburg was on a hill: I learned today that its name means ‘red castle above the Tauber:

It really is an extraordinary place, one of only four towns in Germany that still have completely intact walls (I’ll be visiting two others tomorrow – Dinkelsbühl and Nordlingen):

I was up early this morning to have a look around before the (other) tourists arrived. You can do almost a full circuit of the walls – luckily they’re mostly covered, as it was raining:

I’d seen this view in an article somewhere: it’s the one that made me want to travel along the Romantic Road:

Rothenburg is especially atmospheric without anyone around:

According to Gloria Google, it was a ‘free imperial city’ from the late Middle Ages till 1803, meaning that it was self-ruling and subordinate only to the Holy Roman Emperor, and not to a local prince-bishop. This is the town hall:

Gloria also notes that Rothenburg was seen by Nazi ideologues as ‘the most German of German towns’ and that through the 1930s they organised regular day trips here from all over the country, an initiative that was strongly supported by the residents.

Rothenburg’s Jewish community, which was already established by the early 13th century, was banned in 1520, returned in 1870, only to be expelled again in 1938, as commemorated by this plaque in the garden of a renowned 13th century rabbi:

But this remains Europe’s only surviving medieval example of a Judengasse (Jewish street/alley – it has gone by that name since 1371):

In March 1945, a contingent of German soldiers was stationed in the town, with orders to defend it to the end. Soon afterwards, the eastern part of the town was damaged in an allied air raid. But the US Assistant Secretary of War knew Rothenburg and was keen to preserve it. He ordered the Army to stop further bombing or shelling. Instead, a delegation of US soldiers entered under a white flag and promised to spare the town if it surrendered. The local commander agreed, in contravention of his orders. Hence most of the older, medieval, western end of the town survived intact.

But around a third of the town still needed to be rebuilt or repaired. The work was partly funded by donations from individuals, families and organisations from all over the world, as recorded in plaques set into the walls, which sometimes seem a little out of place in the medieval setting:

Highlights of my ramblings today, aside from the all-round gorgeousness of the town itself, include this silly sign in a gift shop. The joke doesn’t translate perfectly into English, but it’s not the wurst I’ve ever seen: ‘everything has an end, only the sausage has two’:

And this brilliant 3-D model of the town, with captions in braille, that reminded me of the wonderful book All The Light You Cannot See, in which the father builds a model of St Malo, so that his blind daughter, newly evacuated from Paris, can get her bearings:

Tomorrow, Team Bernard are back on the (Romantic) road, destination: Nordlingen. Tschüss!