Tower steps, Riemenschneider and a wall you can walk

Everything here is a few minutes from P4 or P5 on foot. With half a day I'd do the tower, the altar and the Burggarten.

1. Climb the Rathaus tower with cash

The Rathaus tower is 220 steps, €4 for adults and cash only. From April to October it opens daily 09:30–12:30 and 13:00–17:00; you enter through the town hall's main portal.

2. See Riemenschneider's altar in St Jakob

Tilman Riemenschneider's Holy Blood Altar, from about 1500, stands in the western high choir of St Jakob. April to September the church opens 10:00–18:00.

3. Photograph the Plönlein before ten

The town's best-known view, the Plönlein, frames two gate towers: the Siebersturm from about 1385 and the Kobolzeller Tor from about 1360. It's a fork in the street, so come before the tour groups.

4. Walk the Burggarten at any hour

The Burggarten is open around the clock, except on the Saturday evening of the Reichsstadt-Festtage. The tourist board calls the story that an earthquake destroyed the castle "probably more of a legend".

5. Give the Crime Museum an hour

The Medieval Crime Museum fills a former Order of St John house from 1395. Its point about the iron maiden: a shame punishment, not a killing machine, and the nails were added later.

6. Walk a stretch of the wall

The town wall runs about 4 km round the old town. The tourist board can't agree with itself on the towers: 46 in the text, 42 gates and towers in its summary. I'd walk one stretch rather than the full loop.

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Schneeballen, Silvaner and Franconian cooking

1. Buy one Schneeball, not a box

A Rothenburger Schneeball is shortcrust strips folded into a ball, fried and dusted with sugar. The tourist board's recipe uses plum schnapps and four minutes in fat at 180 °C. Bäckerei Striffler sells them and runs group baking sessions. One is plenty; they're dry.

2. Eat Franconian at the Glocke or the Ochsen

The Glocke cooks Franconian food and runs a fish menu; Gasthof Zum Ochsen does Franconian home cooking.

3. Drink the local white, ask for Tauberschwarz

The Glocke's wine shop sells Silvaner, Bacchus and Riesling, and rare local grapes such as Tauberschwarz that it says you'll only find there.

4. Take smoked bratwurst home

The tourist board recommends smoked bratwurst from the old-town butchers as the thing to take home. For something quicker, the Rothenburger Kartoffelstube at the Hotel-Gasthof Rödertor does potato dishes.

Christmas market from 20 November, Meistertrunk in May

1. Park by noon for the Reiterlesmarkt

The Christmas market runs 20 November to 23 December 2026, closed on 22 November, on the Marktplatz and around St Jakob. The tourist board says it opens on the Friday before Advent, which this year is 27 November. Next year: 19 November to 23 December 2027.

2. Skip the Herbstmesse weekend if you're driving

The autumn fair is on Schrannenplatz until 8 November 2026.

3. Book early for the Meistertrunk

The Whitsun play runs 14–17 May 2027, and the Reichsstadt-Festtage 3–5 September 2027. The tourist board warns of extra old-town closures during festivals, so I'd park outside and not plan to drive in.

The tankard, the privilege and the bombs of 1945

1. Take the Meistertrunk with salt

The story says that in 1631, with General Tilly's troops in town, ex-mayor Nusch drank 3¼ litres of wine in one go and saved Rothenburg. The play has been staged since Whit Sunday 1881.

2. Date the walls to 1274

King Rudolf's privilege of 1274 marks the town's peak as a near-independent imperial city.

3. Notice what was rebuilt

An American air raid in the last weeks of the war destroyed about 45 per cent of the walled town, the city says. So a fair share of the medieval town you photograph was rebuilt after 1945.