Romantic Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber!
- betsydelcour
- Jan 5
- 3 min read
12/28/24
Casey gets one full day off each week at the moment, so we've decided for that day to be Saturday (since literally EVERYTHING is closed on Sunday in Deutschland) and we're trying to make it a general rule that we go somewhere as a family on these days. So far we are still sticking with other towns in Germany. We still don't have our international drivers licenses and aren't quite ready to take Rafa on a train (and the train trips out of country are kind of long and would mostly require an overnight). No worries, as there's plenty to explore here in this magical, if cold, wet and dreary land, and it's all new to us anyway!
So this day was a 2 hour drive east to the state of Bayern (that's Bavaria) to the small town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This town is Instagram famous and was coined a most quintessentially German town...by the local military (you know who)...in the lead-up to WW2. Through the 1930s daytrips were organized for Germans to visit RodT and admire its Deutschy-ness. With that said, it truly is a very cute medieval town. The name translates to "Red Castle above the Tauber (river)" and was established when the castle was built in the 12th century. Although it was the 2nd largest city in Germany in the 14th c, it fell out of favor after the 30 Years War in the 1600s. With that, the town froze in time (no new construction). Fast forward to WW2, Americans bombed 30-40% of the town. Knowing the historic importance of the town, six US soldiers were ordered to negotiate the surrender of the town to save it from being bombed out of existence. The German commander quickly agreed, thus saving what was left of the town from complete destruction.
Today it's a big tourist destination, but ever so lovely. And quite a large town to walk around; each street has new inviting alleyways with more charming old buildings. With it being the weekend after Christmas, everything was still decorated (though no market). I thought it was so cute that most of the shops had miniature live Christmas trees hanging above the store fronts (rather than take up space on the sidewalks). The first thing we explored was the wall - it is one of the oldest walled cities in Germany, complete with remnants of a moat on the outside! We took the ancient stairs up for a birdseye view of the town. It was a colder day - low 30s - so we moved on for some really good pizza. Casey wanted German food, but we were all hungry and didn't see German restaurants that we felt comfortable bringing Rafa in. Pizza place insisted we bring him with us to our table, so pizza it was! It actually really hit the spot, and of course afterward we found ten casual German restaurants a block away that would've been fine. Oh well. Germany is a truly dog-crazy place. People bring their dogs EVERYWHERE with them - inside boutiques, restaurants, supermarkets. So far their dogs are all well-trained (Rafa, not so much, hence our hesitance to embrace this aspect of German culture just yet).
We spent another hour or two wandering around. It was fun people watching - lots of Americans and French speakers there, a couple Aussies for good measure. Every building had its own charm. Hot chocolate from a vendor (mit Schlag - unsweetened whipped cream) was indulgently delicious, and a welcome hand warmer. Capped off our visit with the 4pm clock bells - two doors sprung open with carved figures. Everyone stopped to watch as we thought we'd get a glockenspiel show, but no luck! We all just stood there waiting, and then the doors shut when the bells were done, lol. As with Cochem, we all want to go back when it's warm and the flowers are in bloom!
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